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50 years ago, the world was abuzz with the revelation that an American spy plane — the U-2 — had been shot down over the Soviet Union. The pilot, Francis Gary Powers, was put on trial by the Soviet Union and later exchanged for a Soviet spy. The shootdown wasn't unique, however, as this story from the May 6, 1960 News-Miner illustrates:

12 American Planes Have Been Shot Down

WASHINGTON, May 6, (AP)—The U.S. plane reported shot down by Russia Sunday is the 12th American aircraft lost in encounters with Russian or satellite forces during the last 10 years of the cold war.

Additionally there have been a number of brushes in the Korean and Formosa Strait areas that apparently involved no direct Russian responsibility.

The first of the major cold war incidents occurred in April 1950, when an unarmed Navy patrol plane was shot down over the Baltic Sea.

Another Navy patrol plane disappeared over international waters off Siberia after Soviet planes fired on it in November 1951.

In 1952, the Air Force lost two reconnaissance planes over the Sea of Japan, apparently nearer the Japanese island of Hokkaido than to the Siberian coast.

Attacks in 1953

In March and July of 1953, the Air Force lost another reconnaissance bomber over the Sea of Japan and still another plane of the same type was attacked by Russian fighters about 25 miles from the coast of Kamchatka in the norhtern Pacific.

In 1954, a Navy fighter was damaged by Soviet marked planes, the Navy lost another patrol bomber some 40 miles from the Siberian coast, and the Air Force reported the shooting down of a B-29 over the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido.

Two Navy patrol aircraft were lost in the Pacific area in 1955. A Neptune patrol bomber crash landed near St. Lawrence Island on the American side of the U.S.-Russian boundary in the Bering Sea in June. A Navy Mercator patrol craft was shot down in the East China Sea about 160 miles north of Formosa.

Transports Shot Down

Two Air Force planes, both in the transport category, were shot down in Soviet Armenia not far from the Turkish border in 1958. All nine crew members of the first plane bailed out and landed safely in Turkey. Of the 17 men aboard the second plane, only six were accounted for by the return of their bodies by the Russians. The Soviets have disclaimed knowledge about the fate of the others.

In 1958, two Air Force reconnaissance bombers were fired on in November, one over the Baltic and over the Sea of Japan. Both planes survived the attacks.

The last known incident prior to the one reported yesterday by Soviet Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev was the attack by Soviet type jet fighters on a Navy patrol plane over the Sea of Japan. The American craft, though damaged, returned to its base in Japan.