President Eisenhower (center) commissioned Dr. T. Keith Glennan, (right), as the first administrator for NASA and Dr. Hugh L. Dryden
(left) as deputy administrator.

On this day in 1958, the U.S. Congress passes legislation establishing the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), a civilian agency responsible for coordinating America’s activities in space. NASA has
since sponsored space expeditions, both human and mechanical, that
have yielded vital information about the solar system and universe. It has
also launched numerous earth-orbiting communications satellites. The
agency was created in response to the Soviet Union’s October 4, 1957
launch of its first satellite, Sputnik I.

TIM MAGUIRE

On this day in 1996, a single homemade pipe bomb left in a knapsack exploded amid a crowd of spectators in Centennial Olympic Park,
near the main sites of the Olympic Games in Atlanta. The blast
caused by the crude device killed one person and injured 112
others.  

Eric Robert Rudolph, the Olympic Park Bomber.

Christopher Columbus Kraft Jr. (February 28, 1924 – July 22, 2019)

(AP) – Behind America’s late leap into orbit and triumphant small step on the
moon was the agile mind and guts-of-steel of Chris Kraft, making split-second decisions that propelled the nation to once unimaginable heights.

Kraft, the creator and longtime leader of NASA’s Mission Control, died  today
in Houston, just two days after the 50th anniversary of what was his and
NASA’s crowning achievement: Apollo 11’s moon landing. He was 95.

Neil Armstrong, the first man-on-the-moon, told The Associated Press in 2011, “Christopher Columbus Kraft Jr. never flew in space, but "held the success
or failure of American human spaceflight in his hands."

Then-President Ronald Reagan (center) being briefed by Chris Kraft (right) in Johnson Space Center’s Mission Control Center in Houston,
in November 1981. (NASA via AP, File)

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882 – April 12, 1945)

On this day in 1940, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who first took office in 1933
as America’s 32nd president, is nominated for an unprecedented third term.

Roosevelt, a Democrat, would eventually be elected to a record four terms
in office, the only U.S. president to serve more than two terms.

ROSS SIMPSON

On this day in 1969, Apollo 11 blasted off from Cape Kennedy, FL,
and began the first manned mission to land on the moon.

Nasa astronauts from left: Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin.