July 24, 1981 (Friday)
- Kosmos 1275, a Soviet satellite that had been launched on June 4, was struck by debris while in orbit 600 miles (970 km) over Alaska, breaking into more than 140 pieces of space junk.
- American mediator Philip Habib brokered a cease-fire between Israel and the PLO, temporarily halting the Lebanese Civil War.
- In one of the largest alleged UFO sightings, thousands of people in China claimed to have observed a bright object surrounded by "Saturn-like rings" in Tibet, flying for seven minutes. China's official Xinhua News Agency reported the story eleven days later.
Read more about this topic: July 1981
Famous quotes containing the word july:
“This, it will be remembered, was the scene of Mrs. Rowlandson’s capture, and of other events in the Indian wars, but from this July afternoon, and under that mild exterior, those times seemed as remote as the irruption of the Goths. They were the dark age of New England.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)