Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin
On 5 March 1953, at 21:50 EET, Joseph Stalin, the second leader of the Soviet Union, died at the Kuntsevo Dacha aged 74 after suffering a stroke. After four days of national mourning, Stalin was given a state funeral and then buried in Lenin's Mausoleum on 9 March. Nikita Khrushchev, Georgy Malenkov, Vyacheslav Molotov and Lavrentiy Beria were in charge of organizing the funeral.
Live fire exercise
The Soviet Union, just after Joseph Stalin died in 1954, conducted a live nuclear test, during exercises at the Totskoye range, against soldiers at a distance believed to be safe when in trenches. Any immediate deaths can't be proven today, but Russian human rights activists assert that the long aftermath death toll is in the thousands.