The U.S. State Department angrily accused the Soviet Union of
shooting down an unarmed T-39 Sabreliner aircraft of the United
States Air Force (similar to above) while on a training mission
over Erfurt, East Germany, by a MiG-19 jet fighter of the Soviet
Air Force. Three U.S. officers aboard the plane were killed in the
incident.

According to the U.S. military, the jet became disoriented by a
violent storm that led the plane to veer nearly 100 miles off
course.

The Soviet attack on the plane provoked angry protests from
the Department of State and various congressional leaders,
including Senator Hubert H. Humphrey, who charged that the
Soviets had intentionally downed the plane “to gain the
offensive” in the aggressive Cold War maneuvering.

For their part, the Soviets refused to accept U.S. protests and
responded that they had “all grounds to believe that this was
not an error or mistake…It was a clear intrusion.”

Hubert Horatio Humphrey Jr.
(May 27, 1911 – January 13, 1978)

At 11:38 a.m. EST, on January 28, 1986, the space shuttle
Challenger lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and
Christa McAuliffe is on her way to becoming the first
ordinary U.S. civilian to travel into space. McAuliffe, a
37-year-old high school social studies teacher from New
Hampshire, won a competition that earned her a place
among the seven-member crew of the Challenger. She
underwent months of shuttle training but then, beginning
January 23, was forced to wait six long days as the
Challenger‘s launch countdown was repeatedly delayed
because of weather and technical problems. Finally, on
January 28, the shuttle lifted off.

Seventy-three seconds later, hundreds on the ground,
including Christa’s family, stared in disbelief as the
shuttle broke up in a forking plume of smoke and fire.

Millions more watched the wrenching tragedy unfold on
live television. There were no survivors.

spectators at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral,
Fla. react after they witnessed the explosion of the space
shuttle Challenger.

This photo provided by NASA shows the crew of the Space Shuttle Challenger mission 51L. Front row from left are
Michael J. Smith, Francis R. (Dick) Scobee, and Ronald E. McNair. Front row from left are Ellison Onizuka, Christa McAuliffe, Gregory Jarvis, and Judith Resnik. (NASA/AP)
 

Lloyd N. Morrisett Jr. (November 2, 1929 – January 22, 2023)

(AP) – Lloyd Morrisett, the co-creator of the beloved children’s
education TV series "Sesame Street," which uses empathy
and fuzzy monsters like Abby Cadabby, Elmo and Cookie
Monster to charm and teach generations around the world,
has died.

Morrisett’s death was announced Tuesday by Sesame Workshop,
the nonprofit he helped establish under the name the Children’s Television Workshop. No cause of death was given.

ROSS SIMPSON

John Adam Belushi (January 24, 1949 – March 5, 1982)

Comedian, actor, and musician John Belushi was one
of the seven original cast members of the NBC sketch
comedy show Saturday Night Live (SNL) that premiered
October 11, 1975.

.

James Yoshio Yoda (March 31, 1934 – January 13, 2023)

Yoshio Yoda, who portrayed Fuji, the sweet-natured Japanese
prisoner of war befriended by the irreverent gang of American
sailors at the center of the 1962-66 ABC World War II-set sitcom
McHale’s Navy, died Jan. 13 in Fullerton, CA. He was 88.

Yoda, who also went be the name James Yoshio Yoda during
his post-acting career as an executive of Toyota Hawaii, was
born in Tokyo and studied law at Keio University in Japan
before deciding on an acting career. After moving to the United
States, Yoda enrolled at the University of Southern California’s
film school.