This Day in History

[xoxoxoBruce]

Yes, less than a dozen letters to the FCC would raise a wave of bullshit on the show/station/network.

[Gravdigr]

Nov 29, 1972

PONG

[xoxoxoBruce]

We might recall that it was on this date in 1999 that the Russian Duma (its legislature) voted 273-1 to pass an animal rights bill that prohibited Russians from eating their “animal companions”– their pets. Shortly thereafter the newly-elected President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, vetoed the bill.

[xoxoxoBruce]

12-2-1942 – “…the Italian Navigator has just landed in the New World”.
Actually it was Enrico Fermi in a tent on a squash court under the stands of the University of Chicago’s Stagg Field.

12-2-1957 - the Shippingport Atomic Power Station, reached criticality.

[Gravdigr]

Dec 6, 1912

The bust of Nefertiti was found by Ludwig Borchardt.

Akhenaten found Nefertiti's bust () much, much earlier.

[Gravdigr]

Dec 12, 1985

Arrow Air Flight 1285

On the morning of Thursday, 12 December 1985, shortly after takeoff from Gander [Newfoundland] en route to Fort Campbell [Kentucky], the aircraft stalled, crashed, and burned about half a mile from the runway, killing all 248 passengers [all members of 101st Airborne Division, the Screaming Eagles] and 8 crew members on board.

[Gravdigr]

Hah!

[Gravdigr]

January 15

1919 - Boston's Great Molasses Flood kills 21, and injures 150.

2001 - Wikipedia made it's online debut. Happy Birthday Wikipedia!!!

2009 - Miracle On The Hudson

[Carruthers]

Originally Posted by Gravdigr

January 15

2009 - Miracle On The Hudson

Heavens! Is that really ten years ago?

It was one of those 'I remember where I was when...' moments for me.
I was looking after horses at the time and had just done a final check for the evening.
On getting into the car the 2100 news was on the radio and carried the first report of the accident.
My first thought was that it was going to be a repeat of the Air Florida Flight 90 accident in the Potomac on January 13th 1982.
Thankfully it wasn't to be.

[Gravdigr]

January 16, 2003



Space Shuttle Columbia, the first shuttle in space, lifts off on it's 28th, and final, mission. Columbia disintegrates upon re-entry 16 days later.

[sexobon]

Birthdays: DeForest Kelley, 1920 / Buzz Aldrin, 1930 / Tom Baker, 1934

A space-time threefer.

[Gravdigr]

Happy Birthday, Starchild.

That makes a fourfer, kinda.

[Gravdigr]

Challenger

During the ascent phase, 73 seconds after liftoff, the vehicle experienced a catastrophic structural failure resulting in the loss of crew and vehicle. The Rogers Commission later determined the cause of the accident to have been the failure of the primary and secondary (backup) O-ring seals on Challenger's right Solid Rocket Booster. The failure of these seals allowed a flamethrower-like flare to impinge upon one of two aft SRB attach struts, which eventually failed, freeing the booster to pivot about its remaining attachment points. The forward part of the booster cylinder struck the external tank inter-tank area, leading to a structural failure of the ET—the core structural component of the entire stack. A rapid burning of liberated propellants ensued. With the structural "backbone" of the stack compromised and breaking up, the SRBs flew off on their own, as did the orbiter, which rapidly disintegrated due to overwhelming aerodynamic forces. The launch had been approved despite a predicted ambient temperature of −3 °C (27 °F), well below the qualification limit of major components such as the SRBs, which had been certified for use only at temperatures above 4 °C (39 °F). Evidence found in the remnants of the crew cabin showed that several of the emergency air supplies (PEAPs) carried by the astronauts had been manually activated, suggesting that forces experienced inside the cabin during breakup of the orbiter were not inherently fatal, and that at least three crew members were alive and capable of conscious action for a period following vehicle breakup. "Tracking reported that the vehicle had exploded and impacted the water in an area approximately located at 28.64 degrees north, 80.28 degrees west.

[Happy Monkey]

My generation's first "where were you when"?

I was in elementary school, and some kids came back from the advanced students class (my genius was not yet recognized), saying they saw the shuttle blow up and you could see little bodies falling. I'm glad the latter bit was imagination/embellishing, but little elementary school me did look for them during the endless replays on the news.

[Gravdigr]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

My generation's first "where were you when"?

Mine was when Reagan forgot to duck.