2014
James (Jay) Douglas Muir Leno is 72 today.
With the world anxiously watching, Apollo 13, a U.S. lunar
spacecraft that suffered a severe malfunction on its journey
to the moon, safely returns 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 f
or 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.
The Saturn V SA-508 rocket carrying the Apollo 13
mission really did blast off at 14:13 (military time
for 2:13 p.m., ET) from the Kennedy Space Center
in Florida—and in Houston (CT),
William Shatner in The Twilight Zone episode: Nightmare At
20,000 Feet. (1963)
Shatner is best known for his portrayal of Captain James T. Kirk
of the USS Enterprise (above) in the Star Trek franchise; from the
second pilot in 1965 to his final appearance as Kirk in the 1994
Star Trek Generations.
Actor William Shatner is 91 years young today.