Person report

★23 Aug 1921
The Royal Navy's R-38, the world's largest airship at the time, was destroyed by a structural failure while in flight over Hull, killing 44 of the 49 crew aboard.

★05 May 1940
World War II: A squad of 250 Norwegian volunteers in Hegra Fortress finally surrendered to a vastly superior Nazi force after a 25-day siege.

★31 Oct 1941
More than 101 crew members of the USS Reuben James perished when their vessel became the first United States Navy ship sunk by hostile action during World War II after it was torpedoed by the German submarine U-552.

★03 May 1951
The Royal Festival Hall, the first post-war building to become listed Grade I, opened as the venue for the Festival of Britain.

★13 Jan 1963
Togo's first president, Sylvanus Olympio, was assassinated by military officers in a coup d'état led by Emmanuel Bodjollé, Étienne Eyadéma, and Kléber Dadjo.

★18 Dec 1963
Students from Ghana and other African countries organized a protest on Moscow's Red Square in response to the alleged murder of medical student Edmund Assare-Addo.

★01 Dec 1966
The Pit, one of U.S. college basketball's premier arenas, opened on the campus of the University of New Mexico.

★03 Jun 1973
At the Paris Air Show, a Tupolev Tu-144 broke up in mid-flight and disintegrated, killing the six members of the crew and eight bystanders on the ground.

★30 Jul 1975
American labor union leader Jimmy Hoffa mysteriously disappeared after last being seen outside a restaurant near Detroit.

★20 Dec 1987
The deadliest peacetime maritime disaster in history occurred when the MV Doña Paz sank after colliding with an oil tanker on the Tablas Strait, in the Philippines, resulting in an estimated 4,000 deaths.

Historical data by Wikipedia Contributors CC BY-SA 3.0.