Births on February 18

Nikolai Podgorny, Ukrainian engineer and politician (d. 1983)

Nikolai Viktorovich Podgorny (18 February [O.S. 5 February] 1903 – 12 January 1983) was a Soviet statesman who served as the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, the head of state of the Soviet Union, from 1965 to 1977.

Podgorny was born to a Ukrainian working-class family in the city of Karlovka in 18 February 1903.

He later graduated from a local worker's school in 1926 before completing his education at the Kyiv Technological Institute of Food Industry in 1931. In 1930, Podgorny became a member of the ruling Communist Party of the Soviet Union and climbed up the Soviet hierarchy after years of service to the country's centrally planned economy. By 1953, Podgorny became Second Secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine in 1953 before later serving as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine from 1957 to 1963.

In October 1964, Podgorny participated in a coup replacing Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev with a troika consisting of himself, Premier Alexei Kosygin and General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev. On 6 December 1965, he replaced Anastas Mikoyan as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. After Kosygin's standing was damaged in the wake of the Prague Spring crisis in 1968, Podgorny emerged as the second-most powerful figure in the country behind Brezhnev. Thereafter, his influence over policy declined as Brezhnev consolidated his control over the regime. By June 1977, he was removed as Chairman of the Presidium as well as a member of the Politburo. Upon his removal from the Soviet leadership, Podgorny was forced to resign from active politics and sidelined in Soviet affairs until his death in 1983.