Friday, January 27, 1967: Apollo 1

A flash fire occurred in command module 012 during a launch pad test of the Apollo/Saturn space vehicle being prepared for the first piloted flight, the AS-204 mission. Three astronauts, Lt. Col. Virgil I. Grissom, a veteran of Mercury and Gemini missions; Lt. Col. Edward H. White, the astronaut who had performed the first United States extravehicular activity during the Gemini program; and Roger B. Chaffee, an astronaut preparing for his space flight, died.

     -- Summary, photo by NASA: @

* "Report of Apollo 2014 Review Board" (NASA, April 1967): @

* "Apollo 204 Accident" (report of the Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences, U.S. Senate, January 1968): @
* "3 Apollo Astronauts Die In Fire; Grissom, White, Chaffee Caught in Capsule During A Test on Pad" (New York Times): @

* "Three Apollo Spacemen Die As Blaze Sweeps Moonship" (Associated Press): @
* Life magazine, February 3, 1967: @
* Life, February 10: @

* "Apollo 1: The Fatal Fire" (www.space.com): @
* "Apollo 1: The Fire That Shocked NASA" (Scientific American): @
* Summary (Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum): @
* "Space Tragedy: Astronauts Die in Apollo Fire" (Universal Newsreel): @
* ABC News report: @ 

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Friday, October 7, 1966: Study of UFOs

The Air Force announced today the University of Colorado has been chosen to undertake independent investigations of reports on unidentified flying objects. Air Force Secretary Harold Brown said the university is being awarded a research agreement of about $300,000 "to analyze phenomena associated with UFO sightings."

     The university, located at Boulder, Colo., will also make recommendations on the Air Force's methods of investigation and evaluating flying saucer reports, a program now known as Project Blue Book, dating back to 1948.

     * "University of Colorado Will Investigate UFOs" (Associated Press): @

     * Image from www.ufoevidence.org (Michigan sightings, 1966): @

* April 5, 1966, hearing by Armed Services Committee, U.S. House of Representatives: @
* "Facts About Unidentified Flying Objects" (Science Policy Research Division, Library of Congress, May 5, 1966): @

* "Unidentified Flying Objects Research Guide" (Naval History and Heritage Command): @

* "The CIA's role in the Study of UFOs, 1947-1990" (CIA): @

* "Congressional Hearings on UFOs" (www.ufoevidence.org): @

* "Ford Press Releases -- UFO, 1966" (Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library & Museum): @

* Journal of UFO History (November-December 2004): @

* "The 1966 UFO Chronology" (National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena): @
* "Ann Arbor vs. the flying saucers" (Michigan Today, 2014): @
* "The Great Michigan UFO Chase of 1966" (www.ufocasebook.com): @
* "Unidentified Flying Objects -- Project Blue Book" (National Archives): @

* Project Blue Book Archive: @ 

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Tuesday, September 6, 1966: 'Star Trek'

The science-fiction series' first televised episode, "The Man Trap," premieres on Canada's CTV, two days before its American debut on NBC.

     -- Image from TV Guide, September 10-16, 1966

* Summary (from Memory Alpha): @

* Summary (from StarTrek.com): @

* Summary (from tor.com): @

* Script (from chakoteya.net): @
* Full episode (from CBS.com): @

* "TV: Spies, Space and the Stagestruck" (from The New York Times, September 16, 1966): @
* "Original 'Star Trek' Reviewers Just Didn't Get It" (from time.com, 2014): @ 

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Thursday, February 3, 1966: Luna 9

A Soviet space station made history's first soft landing on the moon Thursday, Moscow announced. British scientists in England said the unmanned capsule, Luna 9, sent pictures back to earth from the moon's surface. A Tass announcement said the landing was made ... after the ship, launched Jan. 31, had hurtled through space for more than three days. The first American attempt at a soft landing, a key step in putting a man on the moon, is not expected before May. A soft landing means bringing an instrument package down on the surface slowly enough so that there is no crash and resultant destruction.

     -- Associated Press: @

     -- Image from Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics, University of Manchester: @  (More from Jodrell Bank: @)

* "Soviets Soft Land on Moon" (St. Petersburg Times): @
* "Soviet's Luna 9 Lands on Moon, Photos Sent" (United Press International): @

* Summary from BBC: @

* Summary from NASA: @ and @
* Summary from Zarya: @

* "The Search for Luna 9" (Air & Space magazine, September 2015): @

* "The forgotten moon landing that paved the way for today's space adventures" (The Conversation, February 2016): @

* "How Russia Beat the U.S. to the Moon" (The Daily Beast, February 2016): @ 

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Saturday, August 28, 1965: 'Ask CBS News About Gemini 5'

CBS airs what is believed to be radio's first nationwide call-in show, "Ask CBS News About Gemini 5," taking questions from listeners about the spaceflight. The show was originally scheduled to air on August 21, but aired instead on the 28th after Gemini's launch was delayed.

-- Top image from (Long Beach, Calif.) Independent (August 28)

-- Bottom image from Broadcasting magazine (September 6): @

* "Media, NASA, and America's Quest for the Moon" (Harlen Makemson, 2009): @

* Gemini 5 summary (NASA): @

* Gemini 5 summary (Encyclopedia Astronautica): @

* Gemini 5 summary (Drew ex machina): @ 

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Wednesday, July 14, 1965: Mariner 4's photos of Mars

Man's first closeup picture of Mars shows a remarkably earth-like desert area -- but gives no hint of an answer to whether they mysterious planet could harbor life. The poorly defined picture snapped as Mariner 4 flew within 10,500 miles of Mars Wednesday was released Thursday night while the U.S. spacecraft was relaying its second picture across 134 million miles of space. Almost half the picture showed only the dark void of space, with but a small portion of the edge of Mars visible in the streaked and smudged frame. (From The Associated Press; full story: @)

     -- Image from NASA; all Mariner 4 photos: @

* "Mariner 4 Makes Flight Past Mars" (The New York Times): @

* Flight details (NASA): @

* "Mariner to Mercury, Venus and Mars" (Jet Propulsion Laboratory): @

* "Mariner 4: First Spacecraft to Mars" (Space.com): @

* "Blast from the past: Mariner 4's images of Mars" (The Planetary Society, 2012): @
* "Looking back at Mariner images of Mars" (The Planetary Society, 2013): @
* Hand-colored image: @ (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) and @ (Dan Goods)

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1965: Barbie Miss Astronaut

Two years after Valentina Tereshkova of the Soviet Union became the first woman in space, Mattel begins selling astronaut outfits for Barbie ("Miss Astronaut") and Ken ("Mr. Astronaut"). It would be another year before Hasbro introduced astronaut gear for GI Joe.

* Summaries from www.barbiecollector.com: @ (Barbie) and @ (Ken)
* Summary from Fashion Doll Guide: @

* "Mattel's Astronaut Barbie Becomes a Mars Explorer with NASA help" (space.com, 2013): @ 

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June 1965: Vacuum of space

Despite the fact that a considerable number of studies have been carried out on the effects of rapid decompression to high altitudes, there is still very little information and data concerning the actual effects of exposures to extremely low barometric pressures -- that is, to pressure environments approaching the near-vacuum of space. This information is becoming increasingly urgent in view of the current manned space flights, the programmed flights to the surface of the moon, and the need for man to function safely within a pressure suit in space. ... The critical situation confronting an aerospace crew should accidental loss of pressure be experienced dictated the use of physiologically normal animals so that the data collected would be as valid as possible to obtain. Normal, anesthetized dogs were therefore used; 126 animals were rapidly decompressed to absolute pressures of 1 to 2 mm. Hg.

     -- From "Experimental Animal Decompressions to a Near-Vacuum Environment" (Bancroft and Dunn, NASA Technical Report, published June 1965): @

* "Human Exposure to Vacuum" (www.geoffreylandis.com): @

* "What happens if you are exposed to the vacuum of space?" (Phil Plait, Discover magazine, 2012): @
* "Human Exposure to the Vacuum of Space" (www.aerospaceweb.org): @
* "The Body at Vacuum" (from "The Engines of Our Ingenuity," University of Houston): @
* "Survival in Space Unprotected is Possible -- Briefly" (Scientific American, 2008): @
* "The Crew That Never Came Home: The Misfortunes of Soyuz 11" (Space Safety magazine, 2013): @
* Summary of Soyuz 11 flight (Encyclopedia Asronautica): @
* "The Effect on the Chimpanzee of Rapid Decompression to a Near Vacuum" (NASA, 1965): @
* "Rapid (Explosive) Decompression Emergencies in Pressure-Suited Subjects (NASA, 1968): @

* "Bioastronautics Data Book" (NASA, 1974; see Chapter 1, "Barometic Pressure"): @ 

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Thursday, March 18, 1965: First spacewalk

A Soviet cosmonaut squeezed out of history's highest orbiting manned satellite today and took man's first slowly somersaulting, free-floating swim in outer space. Then he returned to the cabin of his two-man spacecraft, the Voskhod 2, as the Soviet Union took another giant stride in the race for the moon. ... It was the second Soviet team flight in one space capsule, following a three-man, 16-orbit trip last October. It came only five days before America's first planned attempt to orbit a spacecraft with more than one man aboard. ... Alexei Leonov, 30, a chunky lieutenant colonel and a gifted artist, became the first man in history to step into outer space. 

     -- Associated Press: @

     -- Photo from www.spacephys.ru

* "Learning to Spacewalk" (Leonov, for Air & Space magazine, January 2005): @
* " 'Our Walk in Space': The Russian Cosmonauts' Story of their bold first step" (Life magazine, May 14): @
* "Alexei Leonov: The artistic spaceman" (European Space Agency): @

* Short biography (International Space Hall of Fame): @
* Russian news report: @
* Black-and-white footage (French audio): @
* Black-and-white footage (no sound; from www.britishpathe.com): @
* Color footage: @

* Universal Newsreel (from www.criticalpast.com): @ 

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Saturday, February 13, 1965: Tiros-9

The Tiros-9 satellite (also known as Tiros IX) produces the first photomosaic of the world's cloud cover.

Caption: This global photomosaic was assembled from 450 individual pictures taken by Tiros IX during the 24 hours of February 13, 1965. The horizontal white line marks the equator. Special photographic processing was used to increase the contrast between major land areas, outlined in white, and the surrounding oceans. The brightest features on the photographs are clouds; ice in the Antarctic, and snow in the north are also very bright. The clouds are associated with many different types of weather patterns. The scalloping at the bottom shows how the Earth's horizon appears in individual pictures.

(Photo from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; link to larger image: @)

* "U.S. Has Big Wheel Satellite In Orbit" (Associated Press, January 22): @

* NASA summary of Tiros-9: @

* NASA summaries of all Tiros missions: @

* Tiros-9 summary (Florida State University): @

* "Catalogue of Meteorological Satellite Data -- Tiros IX" (Environmental Science Services Administration): @ and @

* "Observation of the Earth and Its Environment: Survey of Missions and Sensors" (Herbert J. Kramer, 2002): @

* "Earth Observations from Space" (National Academy of Sciences): @

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Saturday, May 23, 1964: Solway Spaceman

This famous photograph, taken by British firefighter Jim Templeton of his daughter, purports to show a "spaceman." What it actually shows has been debated ever since.

* Overview from spacemancentral.com: @

* Overview from thinkaboutitdocs.com: @

* "The Mystery of the Solway Spaceman" (BBC News): @

* "The Solway Spaceman photograph" (David Clarke and Andy Roberts, 2012): @ 

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Wednesday, April 22, 1964: World's Fair

The New York World's Fair bloomed in almost all its heralded splendor but rain, cold and fog put a decided damper on its opening Wednesday. ... President Johnson, noting the fair's theme of "peace through understanding," said that "peace is not only possible in our generation, but I predict it is coming much nearer." The United States, the President added, would soon be a nation "in which no man is handicapped by the color of his skin or the nature of his belief."

     -- Associated Press (story: @)

     -- Photo from untappedcities.com (story: @)

* Overview ("Encyclopedia of the Sixties," 2011): @

* Overview (University of Maryland): @

* Map and other items (Print magazine): @

* Guide book (www.butkus.org): @

* Slideshow (New York Daily News): @

* www.nywf64.com: @

* www.westland.net/ny64fair: @

* President Johnson's speech (American Presidency Project): @

* Speech and first day of issue stamp (www.historygallery.com): @

* "The Space Age Never Looked Brighter Than It Did in the Mid-1960s" (io9.com): @

* "Photographs and Memories" (Daily Kos): @

* "My Four-Day Guide to the World's Fair" (Bob Hope for Family Weekly, March 22): @

* "New York World's Fair Opens; Scores of Policemen Kept Busy" (United Press International, April 22): @

* "World's Fair" (Universal Newsreel): @
* "Peace Through Understanding" (newsreel, British Pathe): @

* "LBJ Opens World's Fair" (UPI and AP, April 22): @

* " 'Sleepers' of the World's Fair" (Family Weekly, August 9): @

* Life magazine, May 1: @

* "The End of the Innocence: The 1964-65 New York World's Fair" (Lawrence R. Samuel, 2010): @

* "Tomorrow-Land: The 1964-65 World's Fair and the Transformation of America" (Joseph Tirella, 2014): @ 

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January 1964: 'Black holes'

The term gains wider use after it appears in articles in the Science News Letter (January 18) and Life magazine (January 24). In simplest terms: "A black hole is a place in space where gravity pulls so much that even light cannot get out. The gravity is so strong because matter has been squeezed into a tiny space. This can happen when a star is dying." (Definition from NASA)

* "50 years later, it's hard to say who named black holes" (Science News, December 2013): @

* " 'Black Holes' in Space" (Science News Letter, January 18): @

* "What are quasi-stellars? Heavens' new enigma" (Life magazine, January 24): @

* "Black Holes" (from NASA): @

* "Black Holes: Facts, Theory & Definition" (from Space.com): @

* "Black Holes" (video, from Hubble Space Telescope site): @

* Definition from "Firefly Astronomy Dictionary" (2003): @ 

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Saturday, November 23, 1963: 'Doctor Who'

DR. WHO? That is just the point. Nobody knows precisely who he is, this mysterious exile from another world and a distant future whose adventures begin today. But this much is known: he has a ship in which he can travel through space and time -- although, owing to a defect in its instruments he can never be sure where and when his "landings" may take place. And he has a great-grandaughter Susan, a strange amalgam of teenage normality and uncanny intelligence.
     Playing the Doctor is the well-known film actor, William Harnell, who has not appeared before on BBC-TV.
     Each adventure in the series will cover several weekly episodes, and the first is by the Australian author Anthony Coburn. It begins by telling how the Doctor finds himself visiting the Britain of today: Susan (played by Carole Ann Ford) has become a pupil at an ordinary British school, where her incredible breadth of knowledge has whetted the curiosity of two of her teachers. These are the history teacher Barbara Wright (Jacqueline Hill), and the science master Ian Chesterton (William Russell), and their curiosity leads them to become inextricably involved in the Doctor's strange travels.
     Because of the imperfections in the ship's navigation aids, the four travellers are liable in subsequent stories to find themselves absolutely anywhere in time -- past, present or future. They may visit a distant galaxy where civilisation has been devastated by the blast of a neutron bomb or they may find themselves journeying to far Cathay in the caravan of Marco Polo. The whole cosmos in fact is their oyster.
     -- Radio Times, November 21
* BBC website: @

* BBC America website: @

* Watch episode 1, "An Unearthly Child": @

* "The Genesis of Doctor Who" (from BBC): @
* "The Changing Face of Doctor Who" (from BBC archives): @

* Entires from BBC episode guide: @ and @

* Doctor Who Online website: @

* Doctor Who Reference Guide: @

* "12 Must-Own Books" (from BBC America): @ 

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What didn't happen on November 22, 1963

President Kennedy

     * Speech at Dallas Trade Mart: @ (text) and @ (materials from JFK Library)

     * Speech in Austin: @ (text) and @ (materials from JFK Library)

     * President's schedule for the day: @

Music

     -- Symphony orchestras in Boston and Chicago, performing in the afternoon as the news of Kennedy's death spread, changed their programs and played the funeral march from Beethoven's Third Symphony.

     * Account from Boston (from time.com): @

     * Original introduction from Boston (from WGBH): @

     * Boston Symphony Orchestra program for 1963-64 season (revised program for November 22 is on Page 9): @

     * Account from Chicago (from orchestra archives): @

     -- On the same day that the album "With the Beatles" was released in the United Kingdom, the band was featured on "The CBS Morning News." The segment was to have been shown on "The CBS Evening News" that night. It eventually aired on December 10.

     * Watch the segment: @

     * "How Walter Cronkite jump-started Beatlemania in America" (from BeatlesNews.com): @

     * "Hello Goodbye: Why the Great Mike Wallace Instantly Forgot His Beatles TV Exclusive" (from The Huffington Post): @

     -- "The Dick Clark Caravan of Stars" was to have performed in Dallas on November 22. The show was canceled.

     * "Dick Clark on the Day America Lost JFK" (John Burke Jovich): @

     * Lineup (from A Rock n' Roll Historian blog): @

     * "Clark Show Off to Big Openers" (Billboard magazine, November 23): @

Television

     From the New York Times, November 23:

     TOKYO -- The first live American television transmission across the Pacific by means of the communication satellite relay was received clearly here today. Pictures transmitted by the Mohave ground station in California and received at the new Space Communications Laboratory in Ibaraki Prefecture, north of Tokyo, were clean and distinct. The sound transmission was excellent. The transmission was received live from 5:16 a.m. to 5:46 a.m. Viewers here saw and heard taped messages from Ryuji Takeuchi, Japanese Ambassador to Washington, and James E. Webb, director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. A message of greeting from President Kennedy to the Japanese people, which was to have been the highlight of the program, was deleted when news of the President's death was received shortly before the transmission. In place of the taped two-and-a-half-minute appearance of the President, viewers saw brief panoramic views of the Mohave transmitting station and the surrounding desert area. The American Broadcasting Company and the National Broadcasting Company shared in producing the program.'

     From The Associated Press, November 22:
     The nation's three major television and radio networks scrapped all commercials and entertainment programs out of respect for the death today of President Kennedy. The National Broadcasting Co., American Broadcasting Co., and Columbia Broadcasting system all said they would devote their entire radio and television programs to news of the assassination and all allied incidents. The Mutual Broadcasting System said it would ban commercials and entertainment features on its radio network until after the President's funeral. ABC said its commercial and entertainment ban would remain in effect indefinitely. NBC said it would observe the commercial and entertainment blackout until "sometime tomorrow night." CBS said it would not return commercials or entertainment programs to its network until after the President's burial. All networks said they would continue broadcasts on radio and TV through the night.
* TV listings for November 22 (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; go to Page 19): @

"Dr. Strangelove"

     A New York screening for critics was canceled, and changes to Stanley Kubrick's new movie were made in light of Kennedy's death (detailed below). The film's premiere was delayed; the movie did not open until January 1964.

     * From "Stanley Kubrick: A Biography" (Vincent LoBrutto, 1999): @

     * From Time.com: @

     * From Los Angeles Times: @

Frank Sinatra Jr. kidnapping

    Three men who were planning to kidnap the entertainer intended to do so on November 22 in Los Angeles, but it was delayed until December 8 in Lake Tahoe, Nevada.

     * From MentalFloss.com: @

     * From TruTV.com: @

     * From Jan & Dean website (The band's Dean Torrence had loaned money to one of the kidnappers, a friend of his): @

     * Newsreel: @

Other

     * "The most famous magazine cover that never was" *(Washington Post): @

     * Kiplinger Washington Letter planned for November 23: @ and @

     * Where We Were" (People magazine, November 1988): @ 

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