On This Day

[gwillybj]

Feb. 7, 1984 http://on.aol.com/video/on-february-7th-bruce-mccandles-walks-in-space-517029656

Bruce McCandless, using a jet-powered harness, exits the space shuttle Challenger and floats untethered outside the spacecraft. He is the first human satellite in recorded history.

[sisko]

July 10, 1962

Telstar, the world's first communications satellite, is launched into orbit.
Telstar is the name of various communications satellites. The first two Telstar satellites were experimental and nearly identical. Telstar 1 was launched on top of a Thor-Delta rocket on July 10, 1962. It successfully relayed through space the first television pictures, telephone calls, fax images and provided the first live transatlantic television feed.

[sisko]

July 25, 1984

Salyut 7 cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya becomes the first woman to perform a space walk.

[Buster's Uncle]

Today in history: July 29
The Week's Editorial Staff 6 hours ago

Russia's Sputnik inspired President Eisenhower to create NASA in 1958.

In 1958, America began to enter the space age


On This Day. 1958: Vowing that the United States would lead the space age, President Dwight Eisenhower signed an act creating the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, more commonly known as NASA. NASA was formed nine months after the Soviet Union beat the U.S. into space by launching the first satellite, Sputnik. Sputnik scared many Americans into thinking that the U.S. was falling behind foreign rivals; it spurred huge government investments in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Although the Soviets — in 1961 — beat the United States would, in 1969, become the first nation to safely land a man on the moon.


On This Day. 1975: Gerald Ford became the first president to visit Auschwitz, the infamous Nazi concentration camp in Poland.

http://news.yahoo.com/today-history-july-29-092000638.html

[Dio]

Today in History: May 30

1381: The Peasant's Revolt begins in England.

1431: Joan of Arc is burned at the stake in Rouen, Normandy (then under English Control and currently Rouen, France).

[Dio]

Today in History: May 31
455: The Emperor Petronius Maximus gets stoned to death by an angry mob while fleeing Rome.
1879: Gilmore Gardens in New York City, New York is renamed Madison Sqaure Garden.

[Geo]

Today in History: May 31
455: The Emperor Petronius Maximus gets stoned to death by an angry mob while fleeing Rome.

Julian or Gregorian calendar?