CAMILLE BOHANNON

Singer Robert Anthony Plant is 73 today.

Plant is best known as the lead singer and lyricist
of the English rock band Led Zeppelin.

From Cape Canaveral, Florida, John Herschel Glenn Jr (above).
was successfully launched into space aboard the Friendship 7
spacecraft (above) on the first orbital flight by an American
astronaut. 

Glenn, a decorated lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps,
was among the seven men chosen by the National Aeronautics
and Space Administration (NASA) in 1959 to become the first
American astronauts.

MIKE GRACIA

On this day, Pvt. Eddie Slovik became the first American
soldier since the Civil War to be executed for desertion
and the only one who suffered such a fate during World
War II.

CAMILLE
BOHANNON

Robert Anthony Plant is 72 today.

Plant has had a successful singing career spanning over
50 years. In 2008, Rolling Stone editors ranked him
number 15 on their list of the 100 best singers of all
time. In 2011, Rolling Stone readers ranked Plant the
greatest of all lead singers. In 2006, Hit Parader
magazine named Plant the “Greatest Metal Vocalist
of All Time”. In 2009, Plant was also voted “the greatest
voice in rock” in a poll conducted by Planed Rock.

Launching of the Mercury-Redstone 3 (MR-3) rocket from Cape
Canaveral on astronaut Alan B. Shepard’s Freedom 7 suborbital
mission. 

From Cape Canaveral, Florida, Navy Commander Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr.
is launched into space aboard the Freedom 7 space capsule, becoming the
first American astronaut to travel into space. The suborbital flight, which
lasted 15 minutes and reached a height of 116 miles into the atmosphere,
was a major triumph for NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration.