Czechoslovakia

Lucie Kundra is something of a feminist rebel -- not because she wouldn't take her husband's name when they got married last year, but because she did. She adopted his surname exactly as it was, and in doing so defied centuries of tradition and the wishes of her own mother. That's because she refused to add the customary feminine suffix "ova" at the end, as the Czech language normally dictates; she answers to Lucie Kundra, not Lucie Kundrova.

President Obama vowed Sunday to pursue the elimination of nuclear weapons from the planet, telling a cheering throng in Prague that the United States is ready to lead an international effort to reduce atomic arsenals and the threat they pose. Speaking only hours after North Korea launched a multistage rocket, drawing new international concern and condemnation, Obama outlined a plan to work toward a goal that he acknowledged remains decades away.

Former Polish President Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski apologized for the first time for ordering Polish troops to take part in the 1968 Moscow-led crackdown on Czechoslovakia's Prague Spring reform movement. Speaking to Czech state TV on the 37th anniversary, Jaruzelski said the invasion had been "very painful for me." "But, in 1968, I was the defense minister implementing a political decision, convinced that there were grounds for that.... I am now offering my sincere apologies."