CAMILLE BOHANNON
On July 11, 1914, in his major league debut, George Herman “Babe” Ruth pitches seven strong innings to lead the
Boston Red Sox over the Cleveland Indians, now known
as the Cleveland Guardians), 4-3.
George Herman "Babe" Ruth
(February 6, 1895 – August 16, 1948)
On June 29, 1995, the American space shuttle Atlantis docked
with the Russian space station Mir to form the largest man-
made satellite ever to orbit the Earth.
This historic moment of cooperation between former rival
space programs was also the 100th human space mission
in American history.
On June 3, 1965, 120 miles above the Earth, Major Edward H.
White II opened the hatch of the Gemini 4 and stepped out of
the capsule, becoming the first American astronaut to walk in
space. Attached to the craft by a 25-foot tether and controlling
his movements with a hand-held oxygen jet-propulsion gun,
White remained outside the capsule for just over 20 minutes.
White had been preceded by Soviet cosmonaut Aleksei A.
Leonov, who on March 18, 1965, was the first man ever to
walk in space.
Edward Higgins White II
(November 14, 1930 – January 27, 1967)
On May 5, 1961, Navy Commander Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr.
was 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 the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration (NASA).
The crew, which included Fred Haise( left), Jim Lovell
(middle) and Jack Swigert (right).
With the world anxiously watching, Apollo 13, a U.S. lunar
spacecraft that suffered a severe malfunction on its journey
to the moon, safely returned to Earth on April 17, 1970.
On April 11, the third manned lunar landing mission was
launched from Florida, carrying astronauts James A. Lovell,
John L. Swigert and Fred W. Haise. The mission was headed
for a landing on the Fra Mauro highlands of the moon.
However, two days into the mission, disaster struck 200,000
miles from Earth when oxygen tank No. 2 blew up in the
spacecraft. Swigert reported to mission control on Earth,
“Houston, we’ve had a problem here,” and it was discovered
that the normal supply of oxygen, electricity, light and water
had been disrupted.
The landing mission was aborted, and the astronauts and
controllers on Earth scrambled to come up with emergency
procedures. The crippled spacecraft continued to the moon,
looped around it, and began a long, cold journey back to Earth.
