The Flight Attendant Who Took Down The Dictator

Vesna Vulović isn't a household name anywhere outside of the country of Serbia. She should be for two reasons.

First, in late 2000 her home country of Serbia had some serious problems - most notably with their reviled president Slobodan Milošević. After soundly losing his presidential re-election, he refused to step down. He had good reason to - he wasn't a very nice guy to say the least. He was later indicted by the UN's International Criminal Tribunal for these atrocities:

• genocide; 
• complicity in genocide; 
• deportation; 
• murder; 
• persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds; 
• inhumane acts/forcible transfer; 
• extermination; 
• imprisonment; 
• torture; 
• willful killing; 
• unlawful confinement; 
• willfully causing great suffering; 
• unlawful deportation or transfer; 
• extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly; 
• cruel treatment; 
• plunder of public or private property; 
• attacks on civilians; 
• destruction or willful damage done to historic monuments and institutions dedicated to education or religion;
• unlawful attacks on civilian objects

What was Vesna's role? She was a very vocal voice in the revolution that overthrew him. She risked life and limb to rally her people to take down this bad guy. She was already somewhat of a celebrity whom the public adored - Why?

Well, that's the second reason she should be a household name. In 1972, she was a flight attendant on an airplane that disintegrated 6 miles (10 kilometers) in the air. She fell (without a parachute), landed, and sustained some serious injuries. She made a full recovery and was instantly a household name in her home country.

How did she survive? Was it a hoax? At the end of the day, the only thing that the people in Serbia would care about was that she made their lives better. She could have chosen to stay out of the public spotlight, but she didn't. It still makes one wonder how serendipitous these two amazing events were and just how much "luck" was involved.