Eddie Cochran, the man behind “Summertime Blues” and “C’mon Everybody,” was killed on April 17, 1960 when the taxi carrying
him from a show in Bristol, England, crashed en route to the
airport in London, where he was to catch a flight back home to
the United States.

The Ford Mustang is officially unveiled by Henry Ford II at the
World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows, New York, on April 17, 1964.

That same day, the new car also debuted in Ford showrooms
across America and almost 22,000 Mustangs were immediately
snapped up by buyers. Named for a World War II fighter plane,
the Mustang was one of the first vehicles that came to be known
as a “pony car.” Ford sold more than 400,000 Mustangs within
its first year of production, far exceeding sales expectations.

The North American Aviation P-51 Mustang.

The crew, which included Fred Haise( left), Jim Lovell
(middle) and Jack Swigert (right).

With the world anxiously watching, Apollo 13, a U.S. lunar
spacecraft that suffered a severe malfunction on its journey
to the moon, safely returned to Earth on April 17, 1970.

On April 11, the third manned lunar landing mission was
launched from Florida, carrying astronauts James A. Lovell,
John L. Swigert and Fred W. Haise. The mission was headed
for a landing on the Fra Mauro highlands of the moon.

However, two days into the mission, disaster struck 200,000
miles from Earth when oxygen tank No. 2 blew up in the
spacecraft. Swigert reported to mission control on Earth,
“Houston, we’ve had a problem here,” and it was discovered
that the normal supply of oxygen, electricity, light and water
had been disrupted.

The landing mission was aborted, and the astronauts and
controllers on Earth scrambled to come up with emergency
procedures. The crippled spacecraft continued to the moon,
looped around it, and began a long, cold journey back to Earth.