A U.S. Marine Corps Hawk air defense missile battalion is deployed to Da Nang. President Johnson (below) had ordered this deployment to provide protection for the key U.S. airbase there.
This was the first commitment of American combat troops in South Vietnam and there was considerable reaction around the world to the new stage of U.S. involvement in the war.
Lyndon Baines Johnson (August 27, 1908 – January 22, 1973)
Hawk missile launchers at Da Nang Airfield in 1965.
Complicated and tension-filled negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union finally result in a plan to end the two-week-old Cuban Missile Crisis. A frightening period in which nuclear holocaust seemed imminent began to come to an end.
Since President John F. Kennedy’s October 22 address warning the Soviets to cease their reckless program to put nuclear weapons in Cuba and announcing a naval “quarantine” against additional weapons shipments into Cuba, the world held its breath waiting to see whether the two superpowers would come to blows. U.S. armed forces went on alert and the Strategic Air Command went to a Stage 4 alert (one step away from nuclear attack). On October 24, millions waited to see whether Soviet ships bound for Cuba carrying additional missiles would try to break the U.S. naval blockade around the island. At the last minute, the vessels turned around and returned to the Soviet Union.
On this day in 1977, Voyager 2 was launched by NASA from a spaceport in Cape Canaveral, Florida with a Titan IIIE / Centaur rocket . The spacecraft was carrying a copper phonograph record containing greetings in dozens of languages and samples of music (below).
Singer Robert Anthony Plant is 71 today.
Led Zepplin reunited for a show at London’s O2 arena, 2007.
The first successful gasoline-powered manned airplane flight took place near Kitty Hawk, NC. on this day in 1903. Orville and Wilbur Wright made the flight.
While Wright Brothers were building the Flyer they continued to make practice flights with their 1902 glider (above). They made about 2000 total glides.
Television history was made on this day in 1969 when singer Tiny Tim and Miss Vicki Budinger were married on "The Tonight Show" with Johnny Carson on NBC.
Tiny Tim (Herbert Buckingham Khaury) (April 12, 1932 – November 30,1996)
Tiny Tim suffered a heart attack just as he began singing at a ukulele festival at the Montague Grange Hall in Montague, Massachusetts.
U.S. military forces attacked a terrorist camp in Afghanistan and a chemical plant in Sudan on this day in 1998. Both targets were chosen for cruise missile strikes due to their connection with Osama bin Laden.
In a speech to the nation, President Bill Clinton detailed strikes against terrorist-related facilities in Sudan and Afghanistan.
On this day in 1968, the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact nations began invading Czechoslovakia to crush the "Prague Spring" liberalization.
Voyager 2 was launched by the United States on this day in 1977 and aboard was a copper 12 inch phonograph record containing greetings in dozens of languages, samples of music and sounds of nature.
A photo of the 12 inch copper record that was sent into space on both Voyager 1 and Voyager 2.
Robert Anthony Plant is 70 years old today.
Iconic rock star Robert Plant gained fame as the vocalist and songwriter of the classic rock band Led Zeppelin, known for such hits as "Stairway to Heaven" and "When the Levee Breaks." He was named the #1 Lead Singer of All Time by Rolling Stone Magazine in 2011. Plant was once training as a chartered accountant, but quit to become part of the English Midlands blues scene.
