Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
U
U-2 Incident
On May 1, 1960, an American U-2 high-altitude
reconnaissance plane left Peshawar, Pakistan,
and flew over Soviet territory on a spying mis-
sion. This was not the first U-2 plane to fly over
the Soviet Union, leading the Soviet army to
improve its antiaircraft weapons. The plane was
shot down and its pilot, Gary Francis Powers,
was captured. Powers survived against great
odds, when his defective parachute opened and
ejected him. When he landed unconscious, he
was discovered by a Soviet farmer before he
could take the cyanide capsule issued to him by
his superiors. When U.S. President Dwight D.
Eisenhower denied knowledge of such spy
flights, the Soviets produced Powers, to the
embarrassment of the U.S. government. The
incident triggered an international diplomatic
crisis between the two superpowers that undid
improvements in diplomatic relations over the
previous years, including the visit of Soviet
leader Nikita KHRUSHCHEV to the United States in
September 1959. Although Eisenhower eventu-
ally apologized for the incident and the United
States suspended U-2 flights over the USSR, the
Soviets were not appeased and a planned sum-
mit of the four powers—United States, Soviet
Union, Great Britain, and France—was canceled.
Under Soviet questioning, Powers admitted
to being an American spy and after a highly pub-
lic trial, he was sentenced to three years in
prison and seven years of hard labor. Twenty-
one months into his sentence, the Soviet and
U.S. governments worked out a deal to free
Powers. On February 10, 1962, at the Glienicker
Bridge separating East from West Berlin, Powers
was released to American authorities in
exchange for Colonel Rudolph Abel (Willie
Fisher), a Soviet spy who had been imprisoned
since 1957 on charges of atomic espionage.
Ugra River, Battle of the (1480)
A bloodless confrontation that took place
between Muscovite and Mongol armies on the
banks of the Ugra River, 150 miles southwest of
Moscow, the Battle of the Ugra River tradition-
ally marks the end of Mongol rule in Russia. The
events that led to the confrontation were sparked
by the grand prince of Moscow IVAN III 's public
declaration that he would no longer pay tribute
to the khan of the GOLDEN HORDE at SARAI , ending
a period of almost 240 years during which Rus-
sian princes had paid allegiance to the Mongols.
Already concerned about Ivan III's prior policy of
increasingly limiting his allegiance to the Mon-
gols by sending token presents rather than pay-
ing tribute, the Mongol khan AKHMED had sent
punitive expeditions against Moscow in 1465
and 1472 that failed to bring Ivan to heel. With
Ivan's public renunciation of allegiance, the stage
was set for a decisive showdown. In preparation,
Akhmed had forged an alliance with Casimir IV
of Lithuania, while Ivan had enlisted the help of
Mengli-Gerai, khan of Crimea, which had for-
merly been part of the Golden Horde. On the eve
of the battle, the Mongol and Muscovite armies
aligned on opposite banks of the Ugra River, but
no fighting occurred. Akhmed's Lithuanian allies
never arrived because they were fighting a
Crimean raid into Lithuania. Akhmed's own
army retreated to Sarai upon news of a raid by
allies of Ivan. Despite later attempts by Muscovite
chroniclers to embellish the military aspects of
Search WWH ::




Custom Search