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) 

On September 19, 1957, the United States detonated a 1.7-kiloton
nuclear weapon in an underground tunnel at the Nevada Test Site
(NTS), a 1,375-square-mile research center located 65 miles north
of Las Vegas. The test, known as Rainier, was the first fully contained
underground detonation and produced no radioactive fallout. A
modified W-25 warhead weighing 218 pounds and measuring
25.7 inches in diameter and 17.4 inches in length was used
for the test. Rainier was part of a series of 29 nuclear weapons
and nuclear weapons safety tests known as Operation Plumbob
that were conducted at the NTS between May 28, 1957, and
October 7, 1957.

ED DANAHUE

Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger is an Austrian-American actor,
producer, businessman, retired bodybuilder, and former
politician who served as the 38th governor of California
from 2003 to 2011. Arnold is 74 today.

1984

ROSS SIMPSON

Susan B. Anthony (February 15, 1820 – March 13, 1906)

SANDY KOZEL

The Space Shuttle Challenger crew members gathered for an official portrait on November 11, 1985.