Mercury Seven or Original Seven, they are (front row, left to right)
Walter M. “Wally” Schirra Jr., Donald K. “Deke” Slayton, John H.
Glenn Jr., M. Scott Carpenter, (back row) Alan B. Shepard Jr.,
Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom and L. Gordon Cooper, Jr.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
introduced America’s first astronauts to the press: The men
(above), all military test pilots, were carefully selected from
a group of 32 candidates to  take part in Project Mercury,
America’s first manned space program. NASA planned to
begin manned orbital flights in 1961. 

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From Cape Canaveral, Florida, John Herschel Glenn Jr (above).
was successfully launched into space aboard the Friendship 7
spacecraft (above) on the first orbital flight by an American
astronaut. 

Glenn, a decorated lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps,
was among the seven men chosen by the National Aeronautics
and Space Administration (NASA) in 1959 to become the first
American astronauts.

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MIKE GRACIA

On this day, Pvt. Eddie Slovik became the first American
soldier since the Civil War to be executed for desertion
and the only one who suffered such a fate during World
War II.

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General George Washington at Valley Forge.

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The Soviet Union inaugurated 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 
its elliptical orbit had an  at 18,000 miles an hour. It 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.

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