Mount Rushmore (Six Grandfathers) before construction,
c. 1905.

On October 4, 1927, sculpting began on the face of Mount
Rushmore in the Black Hills National Forest of South Dakota.

It would take another 12 years for the granite images of four
of America’s most revered presidents—George Washington,
Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt
to be completed.

The monument was the brainchild of a South Dakota historian
named Doane Robinson, who was looking for a way to attract
more tourists to his state.

American sculptor John Gutzon de la Mothe Borglum
(1867 – 1941)

The Soviet Union inaugurated the “Space Age” with its launch
of , 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.

                  
CAMILLE BOHANNON

On the evening of October 3, 1961, a future television classic
called “The Dick Van Dyke Show” debuted on CBS.

The sitcom’s inaugural episode—which revolves around the
lead couple bickering over leaving sick son, Ritchie, with a
babysitter while they go to a party—kicked off a beloved
show that would run for five seasons and receive 15 Emmy
awards.

The show, created by actor, writer and comedian Carl Reiner,
starred the titular Dick Van Dyke, along with a ensemble cast 
including Mary Tyler Moore, Rose Marie and Morey Amsterdam.   

Richard Wayne Van Dyke will be 100 on December 13th.

Chief Justice Earl Warren swore in Thurgood Marshall, the first
Black justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. As chief counsel for
the National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People in the 1940s and ’50s.

Marshall was the architect and executor of the legal strategy
that ended the era of official racial segregation.

Thoroughgood "Thurgood" Marshall
(July 2, 1908 – January 24, 1993)