Today in history: 23 December

1972 – Sixteen Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 plane crash survivors were rescued after 70 days. They stayed alive through cannibalism, as they had to feed on dead passengers’ bodies, which were preserved by the snow around them.

This chartered flight carrying 45 people, including a rugby team, their friends, family and associates that crashed in the Andes mountain range in South America on 13 October 1972.

1978 – Michigan becomes one of the first states to raise its drinking age to 21 over concerns about high school students drinking and driving.

2009 – The man who triggered a major alert by falsely claiming that his son was adrift in a helium balloon received a ninety-day jail sentence, and his wife to twenty. Richard Heene and his wife Mayumi claimed their son had been carried off by the balloon but he boy was eventually found hiding at home.

The judge ordered four years of supervised probation for the couple and banned them from receiving any form of financial benefit from the case.

2012 – Somalian troops were able to free twenty-two hostages that had been taken by pirates almost three years prior. Sources stated that troops were fighting with the pirates for two weeks before being able to rescue the hostages.

Details: www.historyorb.com