Guion Stewart Bluford Jr., Ph.D.

U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Guion S. Bluford became the first African American to travel into space when the space shuttle Challenger lifts off on
its third mission. It was the first night launch of a space shuttle, and many
people stayed up late to watch the spacecraft roar up from Cape Canaveral,
Florida, at 2:32 a.m.

The Challenger spent six days in space, during which time Bluford and his
four fellow crew members launched a communications satellite for the
government of India, made contact with an errant communications satellite, conducted scientific experiments, and tested the shuttle’s robotic arm. Just
before dawn on September 5, the shuttle landed at Edwards Air Force Base
in California, bringing an end to the most flawless shuttle mission to that
date.

These five astronauts were the crew members for STS-8, Challenger. Richard M. Truly, center, crew commander. Daniel C. Brandenstein,
left, was the pilot. The mission specialists were Dale A. Gardner,
William E. Thornton (both on back row) and Guion S. Bluford.

Guion “Buy” Bluford will be 77 on Nov. 22.

From left to right: Sir Hugh Beaver, the first Guinness World Records book, Ross and Norris McWhirter, Norris McWhirte today.

On August 27, 1955, the first edition of “The Guinness Book of Records” is published in Great Britain; it quickly proves to be a hit. Now known as the “Guinness World Records” book, the annual publication features a wide
range of feats related to humans and animals.

The inspiration for the record book can be traced to November 1951, when
Sir Hugh Beaver, managing director of the Guinness Brewery (founded in
Dublin in 1759), was on a hunting trip in Ireland. After failing to shoot a
golden plover, Beaver and the members of his hunting party debated
whether the creature was Europe’s fastest game bird but were unable
to locate a book with the answer.

Thinking that patrons of Britain’s pubs would enjoy a record book which
could be used to settle friendly disagreements, Beaver decided to have
one produced. He hired twin brothers Norris and Ross McWhirter, the
founders of a London-based agency that provided facts and statistics
to newspapers and advertisers.

The fastest game bird is the golden plover (below), in case you were
wondering!

On this day in 1973, the nostalgic teenage coming-of-age movie
American Graffiti, directed and co-written by George Lucas,
opened in theaters across the U.S. Set in California in the
summer of 1962, American Graffiti was nominated for five
Academy Awards, including Best Director and Best Picture,
and helped launch the big-screen careers of Richard Dreyfuss
and Harrison Ford, as well as the former child actor and future
Oscar-winning filmmaker Ron Howard. The film’s success
enabled Lucas to get his next movie made, the mega-hit Star
Wars (1977).

Wolfman Jack (Robert Weston Smith) appears as the D.J. 

Harrison Ford

Explorer  6

From the Atlantic Missile Range in Cape Canaveral, Florida, the U.S.
unmanned spacecraft Explorer 6 is launched into an orbit around the
earth (above). The spacecraft, commonly known as the “Paddlewheel”
satellite, featured a photocell scanner that transmitted a crude picture
of the earth’s surface and cloud cover from a distance of 17,000 miles
and was received in Hawaii after nearly 40 minutes.

The first image taken by Explorer 6 shows a sunlit area of the
Central Pacific Ocean and its cloud cover.

On May 3, 1783, General George Washington (above) awarded the
Badge of Military Merit to two brave Connecticut soldiers at the Continental Army headquarters in Newburgh, New York.

On this day in 1782, in Newburgh, New York, General George Washington,
the commander in chief of the Continental Army, creates the “Badge for
Military Merit,” a decoration consisting of a purple, heart-shaped piece of
silk, edged with a narrow binding of silver, with the word Merit stitched
across the face in silver (above). 

The badge was to be presented to soldiers for “any singularly meritorious
action” and permitted its wearer to pass guards and sentinels without
challenge. The honoree’s name and regiment were also to be inscribed in
a “Book of Merit.”

Washington’s “Purple Heart” was awarded to only three known soldiers
during the Revolutionary War: Elijah Churchill, William Brown and Daniel
Bissell, Jr. The “Book of Merit” was lost, and the decoration was largely
forgotten until 1927, when General Charles P. Summerall, the U.S. Army
chief of staff, sent an unsuccessful draft bill to Congress to “revive the
Badge of Military Merit.”

In 1931, Summerall’s successor, General Douglas MacArthur, took up the
cause, hoping to reinstate the medal in time for the bicentennial of George Washington’s birth. On February 22, 1932, Washington’s 200th birthday,
the U.S. War Department announced the creation of the “Order of the
Purple Heart” (below).