The Soviet Union inaugurated the “Space Age” with its launch
of Sputnik, the world’s first artificial satellite, on October 4, 1957.

The spacecraft, named Sputnik after the Russian word for “fellow traveler,” was launched at 10:29 p.m. Moscow time from the
Tyuratam launch base in the Kazakh Republic.

Sputnik had a diameter of 22 inches and weighed 184 pounds and
circled Earth once every hour and 36 minutes. Traveling at 18,000
miles an hour, its elliptical orbit had an apogee (farthest point from
Earth) of 584 miles and a perigee (nearest point) of 143 miles.

A Soviet technician works on Sputnik in 1957.

The wreckage of Korean Air Lines Flight 007.     
    
    
    
   

On September 1, 1983,Soviet jet fighters intercepted a Korean
Airlines passenger flight in Russian airspace and shot the plane
down, killing  269 passengers and crew-members. The incident dramatically increased tensions between the Soviet Union and
the United States.              

CAMILLE BOHANNON

Robert Plant is best known as the lead singer and lyricist of the
English rock band Led Zeppelin for all of its existence from 1968
until 1980, when the band broke up following the death of John
Bonham, the band’s drummer. He was inducted with the band
into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995.

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 voted "the greatest voice in rock" in a poll
conducted by Planet Rock. Plant is 74 years old today.

On August 7, 1987, Lynne Cox braved the freezing waters of the
Bering Strait to make the first recorded swim from the United
States to the Soviet Union with a time of 2 hours and 6 minutes
and the water temperature averaged around 43 to 44 °F. She
turned 65 years young in January.

The world’s first anthrax epidemic began in Ekaterinburg, Russia
(now Sverdlovsk), on April 2, 1979. By the time it ended six weeks
later, 62 people were dead. Another 32 survived serious illness. Ekaterinburg, as the town was known in Soviet times, also
suffered livestock losses from the epidemic.