Skylab, America’s first space station, was successfully launched
into an orbit around the earth. Eleven days later, U.S. astronauts
Charles Conrad, Joseph Kerwin, and Paul Weitz made the planned 
rendezvous with Skylab, repairing a jammed solar panel and
conducting scientific experiments during their 28-day stay
aboard the space station.

From left, Joseph P. Kerwin, science pilot; Paul J. Weitz,
pilot; and Charles Conrad Jr., commander.

From Cape Canaveral, Florida, Apollo 16, the fifth of six U.S.
lunar landing missions, was successfully launched on its
238,000-mile journey to the moon.

Four days later, the three astronauts returned to Earth, safely
splashing down in the Pacific Ocean.

    
SANDY KOZEL
   

Thomas Jefferson (April 13 April 2], 1743 – July 4, 1826)

Future President Thomas Jefferson, drafter of the Declaration
of Independence and the nation’s preeminent political theorist, 
was born on April 13, 1743.

He was the third president of the United States from 1801 to
1809 and the nation’s first U.S. secretary of state under
George Washington.

Walter M. Schirra, left, Alan B. Shepard, Virgil I. “Gus”
Grissom, Donald K. “Deke” Slayton, John H. Glenn, M.
Scott Carpenter, and L. Gordon Cooper.

On April 9, 1959, the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA) formally introduced America’s
first astronauts to the press: Scott Carpenter, L. Gordon
Cooper Jr., John H. Glenn Jr., Virgil “Gus” Grissom,
Walter Schirra Jr., Alan Shepard Jr. and Donald Slayton.

A pair of NASA astronauts, who were stranded in space for more
than nine months, returned to Earth on Tuesday, landing in the
Gulf of America off Tallahassee, Florida, bringing an end to an unforeseen odyssey.

NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore.