Cape Cod History

1967: Lights On again on Cape Cod. 1960: Soviets shot down plane south of Cape

1960: U.S. goes to U.N. over plane shot down south of Cape Cod

On this day in 1960, United States AmbassidorJohn Cabot Lodge (former US Senator from Masachusetts) addressed the Security Council over the shooting down of an U.S. plane by the Soviets.

On the right are transcripts from that addresses to the Security Council on the Soviet Downing ...

... according to which,- as a consequence of the incident of 1 July 1960, ... the Atlantic Coast: of the United States 150 miles south of Cape Cod, Mass...

Read the New York Times report here.

This followed an earlier incident called the RB-47 incident:

"...Then Khrushchev returned and fired off an abrupt note informing the U.S. that a Soviet fighter plane had shot down the RB-47 near the Kola Peninsula, committing "a gross violation of the Soviet Union's frontier." A Soviet vessel, the note said, had rescued two of the six airmen, and the Soviet government was holding them for "trial under the full rigor of Soviet law."

"The U.S. replied with a bristling note rejecting as a "willful misinterpretation and misstatement of fact" Khrushchev's assertion that the U.S. plane had been shot down inside Soviet airspace. "At no time was the plane closer to Soviet land territory than about 30 miles," said the U.S. But Nikita Khrushchev did not wait for any facts. He called a press conference. Some 300 correspondents, photographers and TV and newsreel cameramen jammed the Kremlin's newly air-conditioned Sverdlov Hall for the show. But this time Khrushchev's spy-plane story did not stand up..." TIME.
_____

Search for Blackout cause is slowed by fog
Playhouse in Provincetown goes on by candlelight and the audience loved it

On this day in 1967 the blackout ended for Cape Codders. The reason for the power failure was traced to an old, spliced line in the woods. Here's a postcard of that simpler era on right.

Power returned early in the morning to the many areas of Cape Cod that were blacked out at 5:29 P.M. yesterday by a break in a 115,000-Volt transmission line in West Barnstable.

Local lodgings simply handed their summer guests extra candles, and stores here did a brisk business in emergency supplies.  In fact, the 1967 blackout caused thousands of people to rush out and buy small generator sets for their homes and businesses which came in handy a few years later when a hurricane hit the Cape. Read the story below.