On June 16, 1963, aboard Vostok 6, Soviet Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman to travel into space. After
48 orbits and 71 hours, she returned to earth, having spent more
time in space than all U.S. astronauts combined to that date.

Before her selection for the Soviet space program, Tereshkova
was a textile factory. She joined  the Air Force as part of the
Cosmonaut Corps and was commissioned as an officer after
completing her training.   

On May 25, 1977, Memorial Day weekend opens with an
intergalactic bang as the first of George Lucas’ blockbuster
Star Wars movies hit  American theaters.

The incredible success of Star Wars–it received seven Oscars,
and earned $461 million in U.S. ticket sales and a gross of
close to $800 million worldwide–began with an extensive,
coordinated marketing push by Lucas and his studio, 20th
Century Fox, months before the movie’s release date. “It
wasn’t like a movie opening,” actress Carrie Fisher, who
played rebel leader Princess Leia, later told Time magazine.
“It was like an earthquake.” Beginning with–in Fisher’s words–
“a new order of geeks, enthusiastic young people with sleeping
bags,” the anticipation of a revolutionary movie-watching
experience spread like wildfire, causing long lines in front of
movie theaters across the country and around the world.

On May 5, 1961, Navy Commander Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr. 
was launched into space aboard the Freedom 7 space
capsule, becoming the first American astronaut to travel
into space. The suborbital flight, which lasted 15 minutes
and reached a height of 116 miles into the atmosphere,
was a major triumph for the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration (NASA).

The crew, which included Fred Haise( left), Jim Lovell
(middle) and Jack Swigert (right).

With the world anxiously watching, Apollo 13, a U.S. lunar
spacecraft that suffered a severe malfunction on its journey
to the moon, safely returned 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
for 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. Swigert reported to mission control on Earth,
“Houston, we’ve had a problem here,” and it was discovered
that the normal supply of oxygen, electricity, light and water
had been disrupted.

The landing mission was aborted, and the astronauts and
controllers on Earth scrambled to come up with emergency
procedures. The crippled spacecraft continued to the moon,
looped around it, and began a long, cold journey back to Earth.

Apollo 12, the second manned mission to the surface of the
moon, was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, with
astronauts Charles Conrad, Jr.; Richard F. Gordon, Jr.; and
Alan L. Bean aboard. President Richard Nixon viewed the
liftoff from Pad A at Cape Canaveral, the first president to 
attend the liftoff of a manned space flight.

Thirty-six seconds after takeoff, lightning struck the ascending
Saturn 5 launch rocket, which tripped the circuit breakers in the command module and caused a power failure. Fortunately, the
launching rocket continued up normally, and within a few
minutes power was restored in the spacecraft.

December 12, 1969