This day in history

In the Persian Gulf, the U.S. Navy cruiser Vincennes shoots down an Iranian passenger jet that it mistakes for a hostile Iranian fighter aircraft. Two missiles were fired from the American warship, the aircraft was hit and all 290 people aboard were killed.

The attack came near the end of the Iran-Iraq War, when U.S. vessels were in the gulf defending Kuwaiti oil tankers. Minutes before Iran Air Flight 655 was shot down, the Vincennes had engaged Iranian gunboats that shot at its helicopter. Iran called the downing of the aircraft a barbaric massacre, but U.S. officials defended the action, claiming that the aircraft was outside the commercial jet flight corridor flying at only 7,800 feet, and were on a descent toward the Vincennes.

However, one month later, U.S. authorities acknowledged that the airbus was in the commercial flight corridor, flying at 12,000 feet, and not descending. The U.S. Navy report blamed crew error caused by psychological stress on men in combat for the first time.
 

Maria Sharapova becomes the first Russian to win the Wimbledon tennis tournament by defeating Serena Williams in the final. 
 

Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie - the ‘butcher of Lyon’- is jailed for life for crimes against humanity.

A protest outside the American embassy in London against the Vietnam War turns violent with police making 31 arrests. 
 

Nikita Khrushchev secures his leadership in the Soviet Union by removing most of his serious opponents from positions of authority in the government.