Francis Gary Powers was shot down over Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg) on May 1,

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U-2 Pilot Shot Down: Cold War Tensions Spike

Francis Gary Powers was shot down over Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg) on May 1, 1960, while flying a CIA U-2 reconnaissance aircraft at 70,000 feet. A Soviet S-75 Dvina surface-to-air missile detonated near the plane, disabling it. Powers ejected and parachuted safely, but was captured along with his survival kit, maps, and a silver dollar containing a poisoned needle he chose not to use. The Eisenhower administration initially claimed it was a weather research plane that had strayed off course. Khrushchev then revealed he had the pilot, the wreckage, and the espionage equipment. The scandal torpedoed the Paris summit scheduled for May 16. Powers was sentenced to 10 years in a Soviet prison but was exchanged in 1962 for KGB spy Rudolf Abel on Berlin's Glienicke Bridge.

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May 1, 1960

66 years ago

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U-2 Pilot Shot Down: Cold War Tensions Spike

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