July 8, 1981 (Wednesday)
- Lt. Adriano Bomba of Mozambique flew a Soviet-built MiG-17 jet fighter into South Africa and then signaled to intercepting forces that he wished to surrender. Bomba, a black African defector, was given asylum by the white minority government that ruled the nation during the apartheid era, in return for military intelligence.
- Born: Anastasia Myskina, Russian tennis player, 2004 French Open winner; in Moscow
- Died: Irish Republican Joe McDonnell, at the Long Kesh Internment Camp after a 61-day hunger strike.
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)