Lithuanian-Polish pole vaulter and coach

Władysław Kozakiewicz

Władysław Kozakiewicz is a Lithuanian-born retired Polish athlete who specialised in the pole vault. He is best known for winning the gold medal at the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow and the bras d'honneur gesture which he showed to the hostile Soviet crowd. In Poland, where the gesture was viewed as a symbol of resistance against Soviet dominance, it became known as "Kozakiewicz's gesture". In addition, he won several medals at continental level, won two Summer Universiades and broke the pole vault world record three times, twice outdoors and once indoors.

Born

1953

December 8

Died

Living

Era

1950s

Country

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About

Władysław, in brief

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Life timeline

Key dates

1953 Born

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What else happened on this day, through history

395 Later Yan is defeated by its former vassal Northern Wei at the Battle of Canhe Slope.
757 The poet Du Fu returns to Chang'an as a member of Emperor Xuanzong's court, after having escaped the city during the An Lushan Rebellion.
877 Louis the Stammerer (son of Charles the Bald) is crowned king of the West Frankish Kingdom at Compiègne.
1504 Ahmad ibn Abi Jum'ah writes his Oran fatwa, arguing for the relaxation of Islamic law requirements for the forcibly converted Muslims in Spain.

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The world in 1953

When Władysław arrived

april 13 CIA director Allen Dulles launches the mind-control program Project MKUltra.
april 24 Winston Churchill is knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.
april 25 Francis Crick and James Watson publish "Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid" describing the double helix structure of DNA.
april 27 Operation Moolah offers $50,000 to any pilot who defects with a fully mission-capable Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 to South Korea. The first pilot was to receive $100,000.

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Same-day contemporaries

Also born on December 8

Charles III 1818–1375 Prince of Monaco (died 1889) Aaron Allston 1960–2014 American game designer and author (died 2014) Ann Coulter 1961– American political commentator and author Antonio de Benavides 1678–1762 colonial governor of Florida (died 1762) Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson 1832–1910 Norwegian-French author, poet, and playwright, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1832) Chigusa Nagayo 1964– Japanese wrestler Eli Whitney 1765–1825 American engineer, invented the cotton gin (died 1825) Georges Méliès 1861–1938 French actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (died 1938) Harold Hongju Koh 1954– American lawyer, academic, and politician

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Same-year contemporaries

Also born in 1953

Alex Grey 1953– American visual artist and author Alex Lifeson 1953– Canadian singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer Alister McGrath 1953– Irish priest, historian, and theologian Andy Partridge 1953– English singer-songwriter, guitarist, and record producer Angélica Aragón 1953– Mexican film, television, and stage actress and singer Arielle Dombasle 1953– French-American actress and model Ben Bernanke 1953– American economist Benazir Bhutto 1953–2007 Pakistani politician, Prime Minister of Pakistan (born 1953) Ciarán Hinds 1953– Irish actor

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Władysław's birthday December 8 Władysław's zodiac Sagittarius When Władysław arrived 1953