Lynne Cox becomes first person to swim from the United States to the Soviet Union, crossing the Bering Strait from Little Diomede Island in Alaska to Big Diomede in the Soviet Union
The Bering Strait (Russian: ) is a strait between the Pacific and Arctic oceans, separating the Chukchi Peninsula of the Russian Far East from the Seward Peninsula of Alaska. The present Russia-United States maritime boundary is at 168 58' 37" W longitude, slightly south of the Arctic Circle at about 65 40' N latitude. The Strait is named after Vitus Bering, a Danish explorer in the service of the Russian Empire.
The Bering Strait has been the subject of the scientific theory that humans migrated from Asia to North America across a land bridge known as Beringia when lower ocean levels perhaps a result of glaciers locking up vast amounts of water exposed a wide stretch of the sea floor, both at the present strait and in the shallow sea north and south of it. This view of how Paleo-Indians entered America has been the dominant one for several decades and continues to be the most accepted one. Numerous successful crossings without the use of a boat have also been recorded since at least the early 20th century.
Lynne Cox (born 2 January 1957) is an American long-distance open-water swimmer, writer and speaker. She is best known for being the first person to swim between the United States and the Soviet Union, in the Bering Strait, a feat which has been recognized for easing the Cold War tensions between US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.