(NASA) – America’s first space station, Skylab, launched into
Earth’s orbit on this day in history, May 14, 1973.

The unmanned space station blasted into space on a modified
Saturn V rocket at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center. 

According to Space.com., this marked the last time the Saturn
V rocket was used in spaceflight.

Artist’s concept of Skylab space station cluster in Earth’s
orbit.

ROSS SIMPSON

The Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin comedy team in 1950.

Jerry Lewis (Joseph Levitch)
(March 16, 1926 – August 20, 2017)

Jerry Lewis was a comedian, actor, singer and humanitarian
who was famously nicknamed "The King of Comedy", with a
career lasting over eight decades. He appeared in more than
60 motion pictures, starting in 1949 including sixteen Martin
and Lewis musical comedy films with Dean Martin, as his
partner.

ROSS SIMPSON

Jerry Lewis (Joseph Levitch)
(March 16, 1926 – August 20, 2017)

Project Paperclip Team at Fort Bliss.

In a move that stirs up some controversy, as part of "Operation Paperclip," the United States shipped 88 German scientists to
America to assist the nation in its production of rocket technology.
Most of these men had served under the Nazi regime and critics in
the United States questioned the morality of placing them in the
service of America. Nevertheless, the U.S. government, desperate
to acquire the scientific know-how that had produced the terrifying
and destructive V-1 and V-2 rockets for Germany during WWII, and
fearful that the Russians were also utilizing captured German
scientists for the same end, welcomed the men with open arms.

ROSS SIMPSON

On this day in 1968, U.S.troops in Vietnam destroyed a village
consisting mostly of women and children. The event is known
as the My-Lai massacre.

Over 500 babies, children, women and men were slaughtered by American
soldiers. Many Vietnamese women and girls had been raped. Huts were
burned, livestock was killed, food supplies destroyed.

Twenty-six soldiers were charged with criminal offenses, but only one
Lieutenant William Calley Jr., a platoon leader in C Company, was
convicted. Found guilty of killing 22 villagers, he was originally given
a life sentence, but served only three and a half years under house
arrest.

William Laws Calley Jr. will be 76 on June 8.

This U.S. Army photo shows the aftermath of the Mỹ Lai Massacre 
with mostly women and children lying dead on a road.

The My Lai Massacre memorial site.

The Apr. 12, 1971, cover of TIME.