Legasov Takes His Life on Second Anniversary

On April 27, 1988 — the second anniversary of Pripyat's evacuation — Valery Legasov dies by suicide at his Moscow apartment. He was 51. Legasov had grown increasingly despondent after being passed over for the Lenin Prize and marginalized by Soviet scientific establishment for his outspoken safety reforms after Chernobyl. His cassette tapes are discovered posthumously and their contents eventually published, revealing his scathing indictment of Soviet nuclear secrecy. In 1996, Ukrainian President Kuchma posthumously awards him the title 'Hero of Ukraine.'