June 16, 2012

2012Nils Karlsson, Swedish skier (born 1917)^[†]

Nils Emanuel Karlsson, better known as Mora-Nisse, was a Swedish cross-country skier. Karlsson won gold in the 50 km event at the 1948 Winter Olympics and nine Vasaloppet victories.

2012Jorge Lankenau, Mexican banker and businessman (born 1944)^[†]

Jorge Lankenau Rocha was a Mexican banker and businessman born in Monterrey, Nuevo León. He was founder and president of Grupo Financiero Abaco, one of the most important financial groups in Mexico in the 1990's.

2012Sławomir Petelicki, Polish general (born 1946)^[†]

Brigadier General Sławomir Petelicki was the first commander of the Polish special forces unit GROM from July 13, 1990, until December 19, 1995. Later, he was the head of the Foundation of Former GROM Soldiers.

2012Susan Tyrrell, American actress (born 1945)^[†]

Susan Tyrrell was an American character actress. Tyrrell's career began in theater in New York City in the 1960s in Broadway and off Broadway productions. Her first film was Shoot Out (1971). She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Oma in John Huston's Fat City (1972). In 1978, Tyrrell received the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Andy Warhol's Bad (1977). Her New York Times obituary described her as "a whiskey-voiced character actress (with) talent for playing the downtrodden, outré, and grotesque."

2012China successfully launches its Shenzhou 9 spacecraft, carrying three astronauts, including the first female Chinese astronaut Liu Yang, to the Tiangong-1 orbital module.^[†]

Shenzhou 9 was the fourth crewed spacecraft flight of China's Shenzhou program, launched at 18:37:24 CST, 16 June 2012. Shenzhou 9 was the second spacecraft and first crewed mission and expedition to dock with the Tiangong-1 space station, which took place on 18 June. The Shenzhou 9 spacecraft landed at 10:01:16 CST on 29 June in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. The mission's crew included the first Chinese female astronaut, Liu Yang. The next mission was Shenzhou 10, which launched on 11 June 2013.

2012The United States Air Force's robotic Boeing X-37B spaceplane returns to Earth after a classified 469-day orbital mission.^[†]

The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its origins to 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal Corps, the USAF was established by transfer of personnel from the Army Air Forces with the enactment of the National Security Act of 1947. It is the second youngest branch of the United States Armed Forces and the fourth in order of precedence. The United States Air Force articulates its core missions as air supremacy, global integrated intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, rapid global mobility, global strike, and command and control.