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CARLATA BRADLEY

The D.C. sniper attacks (also known as the Beltway sniper attacks) were
a series of coordinated shootings that occurred during three weeks in
October 2002 in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia. Ten
people were killed and three others were critically wounded in the
Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area and along Interstate 95
in Virginia.

The snipers were John Allen Muhammad (aged 41 at the time) and Lee
Boyd Malvo (aged 17 at the time), who traveled in a blue 1990 Chevrolet
Caprice sedan. Their crime spree, begun in February 2002, included
murders and robberies in the states of Alabama, Arizona, Florida,
Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, and Washington, which resulted in seven
deaths and seven wounded people; in ten months, the snipers killed
17 people and wounded 10 others.

In September 2003, Muhammad was sentenced to death, and in October,
the juvenile, Malvo, was sentenced to six consecutive life sentences
without parole. In November 2009, Muhammad was put to death by
lethal injection.

 
Law enforcement officers search the car that John Allen Muhammad
and John Lee Malvo were in when police arrested them at a rest stop along I-70 west of Myersville.

 
"The Bushmaster rifle used by the convicted snipers.

The Soviet Union inaugurates the “Space Age” with its launch of Sputnik,
the world’s first artificial satellite. The spacecraft, named Sputnik after the
Russian word for “satellite,” 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. Visible with binoculars before sunrise or after sunset, Sputnik transmitted radio signals back to Earth strong enough to be picked up by
amateur radio operators. Those in the United States with access to such
equipment tuned in and listened in awe as the beeping Soviet spacecraft
passed over America several times a day. In January 1958, Sputnik’s orbit deteriorated, as expected, and the spacecraft burned up in the atmosphere.

President John F. Kennedy addresses the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Sept. 20, 1963. Kennedy spoke for what
would be his last address to that body.

An optimistic and upbeat President John F. Kennedy suggests that the
Soviet Union and the United States cooperate on a mission to mount an
expedition to the moon. The proposal caught both the Soviets and many
Americans off guard.

In 1961, shortly after his election as president, John F. Kennedy announced
that he was determined to win the “space race” with the Soviets. Since 1957,
when the Soviet Union sent a small satellite–Sputnik–into orbit around the
earth, Russian and and American scientists had been competing to see who
could make the next breakthrough in space travel.

President Kennedy closed his speech by urging, “Let us do the big things together.”

TIM MAGUIRE

Guion Stewart Bluford Jr., Ph.D.

U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Guion S. Bluford became the first African American to travel into space when the space shuttle Challenger lifts off on
its third mission. It was the first night launch of a space shuttle, and many
people stayed up late to watch the spacecraft roar up from Cape Canaveral,
Florida, at 2:32 a.m.

The Challenger spent six days in space, during which time Bluford and his
four fellow crew members launched a communications satellite for the
government of India, made contact with an errant communications satellite, conducted scientific experiments, and tested the shuttle’s robotic arm. Just
before dawn on September 5, the shuttle landed at Edwards Air Force Base
in California, bringing an end to the most flawless shuttle mission to that
date.

These five astronauts were the crew members for STS-8, Challenger. Richard M. Truly, center, crew commander. Daniel C. Brandenstein,
left, was the pilot. The mission specialists were Dale A. Gardner,
William E. Thornton (both on back row) and Guion S. Bluford.

Guion “Buy” Bluford will be 77 on Nov. 22.