{"id":519075,"date":"2026-03-04T23:26:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T23:26:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/519075\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T23:26:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T23:26:11","slug":"today-in-history-march-5-notorious-soviet-dictator-purportedly-murdered-to-prevent-war-with-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/519075\/","title":{"rendered":"Today in History – March 5: Notorious Soviet dictator purportedly murdered to prevent war with US"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stalin had given strict orders not to be woken up after a big night of drinking with his inner circle several days earlier.<\/p>\n

A housekeeper did not enter his room until 11pm the following night, to find him unconscious and unresponsive.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/Joseph Stalin may have been murdered, though that would not be known for years after his death. (Public Domain)<\/p>\n

Despite this, he was not examined by doctors until 7am the next morning.<\/p>\n

He was treated for two days, including with leeches to decrease his blood pressure.<\/p>\n

But he died after never regaining consciousness.<\/p>\n

Doctors’ notes kept secret for decades showed he had suffered symptoms that indicated possible warfarin poisoning.<\/p>\n

A large dose of the tasteless and colourless blood thinner may have been slipped into his drink the night he suffered the stroke.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/It is now believed Lavrenti Beria murdered Joseph Stalin. (Public Domain)<\/p>\n

Beria was part of the jostle among Stalin’s inner circle to rise to the top job.<\/p>\n

It was later revealed Beria was a serial rapist who had likely murdered a number of his victims.\ufeff<\/p>\n

Beria would pick up women on the streets of Moscow<\/a>, before taking them to his dacha to rape them.<\/p>\n

The next morning they would be handed a bunch of flowers as they left. If they refused the flowers, Beria would have them arrested.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/Joseph Stalin with his daughter. (Supplied)\"\"\/Purportedly the first American to hear the news of Stalin’s death was a young Air Force radio operator named Johnny Cash. (US Army Air Force)<\/p>\n

His sex crimes were suspected to be well-known among senior Soviets. When Stalin himself learned his teenage daughter was at Beria’s home, he called and demanded she leave immediately.<\/p>\n

Cash would often detail how he received the news, though doubts have been cast as to the veracity of his story.<\/p>\n

Nikita Khrushchev would take power after Stalin’s death.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stalin had given strict orders not to be woken up after a big night of drinking with his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":519076,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-519075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=519075"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519075\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/519076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=519075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=519075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=519075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}