1943 – The famous exile revolt takes place in one of the most horrific Holocaust extermination camps, that of Sobibor in Poland. Led by Alexander Pechervsky, a Russian soldier of Jewish descent, hundreds of the camp’s exiles, men, women, the elderly, and children, broke down the gates and fled into the woods. A few minutes earlier Pechervsky’s group had secretly killed 11 washed SS officers and severely wounded the camp commander during the escape. Of the 300 internees who escaped, only 58, including Pechervsky, could survive until after the war.
1944 – Marshal Erwin Rommel dies in Herlingen, Germany at the age of 52. Rommel otherwise known as the Desert Fox, would be one of the most trained Nazi army servicemen during World War II. He would lead the fighting for the occupation of France, and for the counterattack against the Anglo-Americans in North Africa. But in 1944 he was implicated in the failed coup against Hitler. His colleagues offered him two options before arresting him, first to commit suicide and then to be honored as a senior military man, or to be arrested and sentenced to be shot. Rommel, chose the first. Today he is one of the few German soldiers who did not take part in war crimes.
1947 – US military pilot Chuck Yeager becomes the first man in history to exceed the speed of sound. With his Bell-X 1 aircraft, he would climb to an altitude of 14,000 meters at a speed of more than 1600 km per hour. For this experiment as well as for his contributions to the battles of World War II, Yeager would be decorated several times with the highest medals of the US Army. He would also win Collier and Mackay trophies which are given to people who break big records in the airfield.
1962 – Cuban Missile Crisis officially begins. During a routine air patrol over the Caribbean, the US U-2 surveillance aircraft locates and photographs several Soviet missile installations in the Cuban jungles. That would be enough for Kennedy and Khrushchev to exchange mutual accusations and controversies with each other at the UN Security Council. For about 15 days the world would hold its breath because the situation was so tense that it could trigger World War III. But it would be resolved later, when the two superpower leaders would meet in Vienna and remove missile installations from Cuba and Turkey.
1986 – Bilal Xhaferri, Albanian writer, publisher and activist, dies. He grew up with his sister in exile where he completed his education. He did a one-year school as a surveyor. In 1967 the volume of poetry “Red Freedom” was published. In the same year he competed with the novel “Krastakraus” in the literary competition held on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the birth of Skanderbeg, but did not win. This novel would be published in 1993. In 1968, he spoke in the Writers’ League against Kadare’s novel Dasma, accusing Kadare of revisionism of the communist doctrine, a very serious accusation during the communist regime that could have damaged him. many Kadare. For this he was severely reprimanded by Fadil Paçrami. The communist authorities could not allow a person with “biographical spots” to cause them trouble, even though he may have been an ardent communist. He was stripped of his publishing rights and exiled. After a meeting of the Writers’ League headed by Rita Marko, she was convincingly criticized and expelled. On August 30, 1969 he fled Albania to Greece. In 1970, he went to the USA, to Boston, where until 1972 he worked for the newspaper “Dielli”. In 1974 he moved to Chicago where he founded the magazine “Eagle’s Wing”, a publication of the Cham League which he directed, published and edited for 39 issues in two languages, Albanian and English. In 1986 he died in Chicago.
2012 – Austrian spacecraft Felix Baumgartner becomes the first person in the world to jump from the stratosphere to Earth via free fall. Climbing to an altitude of 39,000 meters he jumped from the Red Bull capsule towards the ground reaching a speed of 1400 km per hour. In the last meters the descent was done by parachute. This spectacle was considered by analysts as one of the most special, but also the most dangerous in the world.
