SANDY KOZEL

(AP)

At 11:38 a.m. EST, on January 28, 1986, the space shuttle
Challenger lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and
Christa McAuliffe is on her way to becoming the first
ordinary U.S. civilian to travel into space. McAuliffe, a
37-year-old high school social studies teacher from New
Hampshire, won a competition that earned her a place
among the seven-member crew of the Challenger.

Seventy-three seconds later, hundreds on the ground,
including Christa’s family, stared in disbelief as the
shuttle broke up in a forking plume of smoke and fire.

The crew of the Challenger space shuttle. Front row,
from left to right, shows astronauts Mike Smith, Dick
Scobee, Ron McNair and in the rear row, from left to
right, are Ellison Onizuka, school teacher Christa
McAuliffe, Greg Jarvis, and Judith Resnik. (NASA) 

A launch pad fire during Apollo program tests at Cape Canaveral,
Florida, killed astronauts Virgil “Gus” Grissom, Edward H. White II,
and Roger B. Chaffee.

The astronauts, the first Americans to die in a spacecraft, had
been participating in a simulation of the Apollo 1 launch that 
was scheduled for the following month.

The Apollo 1 prime crewmembers intended for the first
manned Apollo space flight: (L to R) Edward H. White II,
Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom, and Roger B. Chaffee.

David Emge, who played Stephen "Flyboy" Andrews the helicopter
pilot turned zombie in George A. Romero‘s Dawn of the Dead, has 
has died.

Emge’s family shared the news of his death with the Evansville
Courier & Press, a newspaper in his Indiana hometown. He died
Saturday at the West River Health Campus. A cause of death was
not disclosed. He was 77. 

1978

ROSS SIMPSON

James Wilson Marshall
(October 8, 1810 – August 10, 1885)

The caption with this photo at the Library of Congress
claims that this was Marshall in front of the mill in 1850.

On January 24, 1848, gold was discovered at Sutter’s Mill on
the American River in Northern California. After James W.
Marshall, who’d been overseeing the sawmill’s construction,
found the gold nuggets he and his boss, John Sutter,
attempted to keep

the discovery a secret. However, word soon spread and by
1849 thousands of prospectors, who became known as 49ers,
were flocking to Coloma, California, site of Sutter’s Mill, and
the surrounding region, hoping to strike it rich.

   
James Marshall’s cabin.

   

    
    
    
   
John Augustus Sutter
(February 23, 1803 – June 18, 1880)

The spot where Marshall first discovered the gold that
started the California Gold Rush.

Gary Graham in the role of the Vulcan Ambassador Soval
in "Star Trek: Enterprise."

(FOX NEWS) – Actor Gary Graham, known for his roles in several offshoots of ‘Star Trek’ has passed away.

The actor also guest starred in a variety of popular shows
throughout his career, like Starsky and Hutch, The Dukes
of Hazzard, and Moonlighting.

His wife of nearly 25 years, Becky Graham, told Fox News Digital
that the actor died from cardiac arrest on Monday in a Spokane, Washington hospital. He had a history of heart problems, but
Graham says her husband’s 2-day intensive care stay came on
suddenly.