The brand-new Sukhoi Superjet 100 plane crashes
The regional jet was the first airliner produced in Russia since the end of the USSR in 1991. The doomed flight was a demonstration tour carrying potential customers. All 45 people on board perished in the crash, which was caused by pilot error.
Pete Peterson becomes the first U.S. ambassador to visit Vietnam after the end of the war
Peterson, a Vietnam veteran, devoted himself to promoting reconciliation between the two countries. About 2.5 million Vietnamese, most of them civilians, were killed during the war.
Iranian Jewish businessman Habib Elghanian is executed
An Islamic revolutionary tribunal had convicted him of “contacts with Israel and Zionism” and “friendship with the enemies of God”. His execution triggered a Jewish mass exodus from Iran.
The first birth control pill is approved
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced that it would add birth control as a new indication for the drug “Enovid”.
- 1949 Billy JoelAmerican singer-songwriter, pianist
- 1934 Alan Bennett
English actor, screenwriter, author - 1921 Sophie Scholl
German student, activist - 1837 Adam Opel
German engineer, founded the Opel Company - 1800 John BrownAmerican activist
- 2012 Vidal Sassoon
English/American hairdresser - 1986 Tenzing Norgay
Nepalese mountaineer - 1976 Ulrike MeinhofGerman journalist, activist
- 1805 Friedrich Schiller
German poet, playwright, historian - 1707 Dieterich Buxtehude
German/Danish organist, composer
