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)
 

On January 27, 1945, Soviet troops entered Auschwitz, Poland,
freeing the survivors of the network of concentration camps—
and finally revealing to the world the depth of the horrors
perpetrated there.

Auschwitz was really a group of camps, designated I, II, and III.

There were also 40 smaller “satellite” camps. It was at Auschwitz
II, at Birkenau, established in October 1941, that the SS created a complex, monstrously orchestrated killing ground: 300 prison
barracks; four “bathhouses” in which prisoners were gassed;
corpse cellars; and cremating ovens. Thousands of prisoners
were also used for medical experiments overseen and performed
by the camp doctor, Josef Mengele (below) the “Angel of Death.”

Josef Rudolf Mengele
(16 March 1911 – 7 February 1979)

Soon after the Bolsheviks seized control in immense, troubled
Russia in November 1917 and moved towards negotiating peace
with the Central Powers, the former Russian state of Ukraine
declared its total independence.

Ukraine Flag in 1918.