fencing champion Joe Valachi, 66, American gangster who became a government witness who testified in detail before Congress about the inner workings of the American Mafia, died of a heart attack while serving a prison sentence. April 4, 1971 (Sunday) Kosmos 404 was launched by the USSR as an ASAT test. Its target was Kosmos 400, which it intercepted and destroyed. The Mukti Bahini, a guerrilla force of East Pakistanis and the predecessor of the Bangladesh Armed Forces, was organized under the command of General M. A. G. Osmani, a retired Pakistan Army officer, from units of Pakistan's East Bengal Regiment and the East Pakistan Rifles, joined by civilians who volunteered to serve in the "People's Army" the Gonobahini. Died: Victor Odlum, 90, Canadian journalist, soldier, and diplomat April 5, 1971 (Monday) In Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), the Marxist-Leninist group Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (People's Liberation Front) began a rebellion against the government of Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike, starting with plans for a simultaneous surprise attack on police stations nationwide at 11:00 at night and a plot to kidnap Bandaranaike from her residence. Because of a failure to attend a planning meeting on April 2, and a misunderstanding of a specific time for the uprising to start, a unit assigned to assault the police station at Wellawaya launched its attack on the morning of April 5 and ruined the JVP's plan to catch the rest of Ceylon's police off guard. Frances Phipps became the first woman to travel to the North Pole as she and her husband Welland Phipps, co-owners of the Atlas Aviation charter service, flew a Twin Otter ski plane to install a radar beacon at the Pole. A major eruption of Mount Etna in Sicily began. In the course of the eruption, lava buried the Etna Observatory (built in the late 19th century), destroyed the first generation of the Etna cable-car, and seriously threatened several small villages on Etna's east flank. Chile and East Germany established diplomatic relations. Yu Song-gun, a diplomat of South Korea's Embassy in West Germany, was kidnapped by North Korean agents while he and his wife were visiting West Berlin. Robert M. Blais was sworn into office as the mayor of tiny Lake George Village, New York, and would celebrate half a century in office in 2021. As of 2022, he was still in office after 51 consecutive years. April 6, 1971 (Tuesday) "Ping-pong