TIM MAGUIRE
Armstrong became the first person to step onto the lunar surface.
On this day in 1969, Apollo 11 astronauts Commander Neil Armstrong and
lunar Module pilot Edwin E. “Buzz” Aldrin, Jr. became the first men to walk
on the moon.
First footprint on the Moon (left) was that of astronaut Neil
Armstrong (right).
Astronaut Buzz Aldrin Jr. poses for a photograph beside the U.S. flag.
(Neil Armstrong/NASA via AP)
Nils Ivar Bohlin (July 17, 1920 – September 21, 2002)
Nils Bohlin, the Swedish engineer and inventor responsible
for the three-point lap and shoulder seatbelt–considered
one of the most important innovations in automobile safety,
was born in Härnösand, Sweden.
Before 1959, only the two-point lap belts were available in
automobiles; for the most part, the only people who regularly
buckled up were race car drivers.
In 1942 Bohlin started working for the aircraft maker Saab as
an aircraft designer and helped develop ejection seats. In
1958 he joined Volvo as a safety engineer where he invented
the three-point safety belt, now a standard safety feature in
all cars.
Thomas (Tom) Jeffrey Hanks
Legendary actor who won back-to-back Academy Awards for
Best Actor for his roles in Philadelphia in 1993 and Forrest
Gump in 1994. He has starred in many other classics, including
Cast Away (2000), The Green Mile (1999), Saving Private Ryan
(1998), and Apollo 13 (1995). He voiced the lead character Woody
in the Pixar animated film series Toy Story beginning in 1995.
CAMILLE
BOHANNON
On this day in 1947, a United States Army Air Forces balloon crashed at a ranch near Roswell, New Mexico. Following wide initial interest in the crashed "flying disc", the US military stated that it was merely a conventional weather balloon. Interest subsequently waned until the late 1970s, when Ufologists began
promoting a variety of increasingly elaborate conspiracy theories, claiming
that one or more alien spacecraft had crash-landed and that the extraterrestrial occupants had been recovered by the military, which then engaged in a cover-
up.
In the 1990s, the US military published two reports disclosing the true nature
of the crashed object: a nuclear test surveillance balloon from Project Mogul.
Roswell Army Air Field Intelligence Officer Jesse Marcel, sr. holding
foil debris from Roswell, New Mexico UFO crash site.
