events
World War II: The Estonian military boards the Polish submarine ORP Orzeł in Tallinn, sparking a diplomatic incident that the Soviet Union will later use to justify the annexation of Estonia.
Related Wikipedia articles
World War II
1939–1945 global conflict
World War II or the Second World War was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated, with many nations mobilising all resources in pursuit of total war. Tanks and aircraft played major roles,…Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)
ORP Orzeł (1938)
Polish World War II submarine
ORP Orzeł was an Orzeł class submarine of the Polish Navy that served during World War II.Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)
Tallinn
Capital and largest city of Estonia
Tallinn is the capital and most populous city of Estonia. Situated on a bay in north Estonia, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, it has a population of 456,518 as of 2025 and administratively lies in Harju County. Tallinn is the main governmental, financial,…Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)
Orzeł incident
1939 diplomatic crisis between Estonia and USSR
The Orzeł incident occurred at the beginning of World War II in September 1939, when the interned Polish submarine ORP Orzeł escaped from Tallinn, in neutral Estonia, to the United Kingdom. Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union used the incident as one of the pretexts to justify its…Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)