ON THIS DAY IN AMERICAN HISTORY | |
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On August 19, 1960, U.S. Air Force pilot Francis Gary Powers is sentenced to 10 years imprisonment by the USSR for spying. On May 10, 1960, Powers was flying a U-2 spy plane over the Soviet Union when he was shot down over the Ural Mountains. On May 5, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev announced the capture and said Powers had confessed to spying. Eighteen months after his official sentencing, Powers was exchanged for a Russian spy, Rudolf Abel, on the Glienicker Bridge, which connected East and West Berlin. When Powers returned to the U.S., he was cleared of any culpability. In 1977, he died in a helicopter crash while working as pilot for a Los Angeles television news station. |
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