Sol Spiegelman (University of Illinois) demonstrates in an experiment that Darwinism at the molecular level: he sees the RNA of a virus evolve, through an accelerated chemical process, into something more efficient in replication, later called Spiegelmans Monster
The second Soviet UR-500/7K-L1 launch vehicle explodes in a fireball during launch due to the failure of its second stage. Once again, the lunar capsule’s rescue system does its job, and the L1 ejects.
The United Nations passes Resolution 242, a compromise after the Six-Day War. Israel won the war. But it would not have won the peace. The “special relationship” between Israel and the United States was born during this period.
Apollo IV: First flight of Von Braun’s Saturn V (SA-501); this was the success of the “all-up” approach, that is, testing several concepts all at the same time and not one at a time. This concept was deeply contrary to von Braun’s methodical way of
Charles Misner of the University of Maryland started with an innovative hypothesis: that the Universe was originally chaotic, but that friction and other factors later brought uniformity and homogeneity, leading to the current observed isotropy. In 1977, however, Barrow and Matzner demonstrated that this friction
Venera 4 enters the Venusian atmosphere and is crushed by it at an altitude of 27 km.
Ernesto Che Guevara was killed in La Higuera, Bolivia; he had traveled to Bolivia to spark a communist revolution in South America after having unsuccessfully attempted to do so in Congo; in both cases, however, he was unable to establish the desired contact with the
US President Lyndon Johnson declared, “We have spent 35 or 40 billion dollars on the space program so far; and even if we had gained nothing but information from spy satellite photography, these photographs would be worth ten times the sum spent; because tonight we
In the Kilby vs. Noyce case, pitting Texas Instruments against Fairchild Semiconductors over the first patent on integrated circuits, which began in 1959, the final verdict upheld Texas as the patent holder. Fairchild then appealed, and the court concluded in November 1969 that Noyce was
An international treaty, signed simultaneously in Washington, London, and Moscow, prohibits the militarization of space and the claiming of territories above the Earth’s atmosphere.
Donald Campbell reaches a speed record of 485 km/h on the water in his Blue Bird, dies on the return journey after his speedboat rears up.
Gemini XII: Lovell and Aldrin performing a 5-hour Extra Vehicular Activity (EVA).
Gerard Boole builds, on behalf of the Canadian government, a super-cannon in Barbados: with a 36m barrel and special solid explosive, he manages to send a transmitting probe to an altitude of 185km in sub-orbital space flight.
While on a state tour of the Pacific, U.S. President Johnson makes a surprise visit to South Vietnam. He comes closer to the battlefield than any president since Lincoln at Fort Stevens and the Confederate push into Washington, D.C., in 1864.
Luna 11 entered lunar orbit in August 1966. It transmitted photos between two different frequencies, making it difficult to intercept the communication this time. The photos were never published. The probe oriented incorrectly and photographed space.
Gemini 8 Mission: Neil Armstrong and Dave Scott successfully dock with the unmanned Agena rocket; Neil then saves the day when the probe loses control and begins to spin rapidly (1 revolution per second); for this cold-blooded intervention, Armstrong is chosen to make the first
Indonesia. President Sukarno is pressured to sign a letter handing over power to Suharto, the general who foiled the previous year’s coup. In March 1967, Suharto becomes acting president, with full powers from March 1968. He remains in power for 30 years.
The first Saturn IB (AS-201 vehicle) lifts off from Launch Complex 34 at Cape Canaveral with no one on board. It is the first test of the J2 engines, which will be used in the second and third stages of the Saturn V, which will
NASA’s J2 engines, powered by liquid oxygen and hydrogen, completed their first test aboard the Saturn V rocket. This is the first engine capable of shutting down and restarting for a second mission in space.
The Soviet Luna 9, designed by the Lavochkin laboratories, successfully lands on our satellite, and opens its petals to transmit the first lunar photographs to Earth.
Bob Taylor takes over the leadership of the ARPA IPTO (Information Processing Techniques Office), which belonged to Licklider, the father of the Internet concept. Taylor arrives from NASA. Taylor realizes it would make sense to electronically connect different research centers in the United States to
China. Cultural Revolution. In Beijing alone, Red Guard attacks destroy 4,922 of the 6,843 sites of historical or cultural interest. The Forbidden City itself is saved only by the personal intervention of Zhou Enlai. All universities are closed. Professional competence itself becomes a dangerous bourgeois
B-52, taking off from North Carolina on a Chrome Dome mission, begins its second in-flight refueling mission a couple of miles above Spain. The plane rendezvouses with the tanker too quickly, enters the refueling pipe, which explodes and turns the tanker into a fireball, killing
Gemini 7 and 6: The first joint mission of two Gemini probes: the first is launched: Gemini VII, carrying Borman and Lovell, will remain in orbit for 14 days; the first use of soft headgear instead of hard helmets
La-Drang: First direct clash between American and North Vietnamese troops in Vietnam; the episode is the basis of the film “We Were Soldiers”; approximately 50 Americans and approximately 1,600 North Vietnamese die.
Vietnam. American generals demand from the president an additional 113,000 troops, a naval blockade of the North, and a B-52 bombing of Hanoi. Johnson explodes with rage, calling them “shitheads,” “dumb shits,” “fucking pompous assholes,” and “military idiots.”
A total blackout across the Northeast caused by a fault in a Canadian power plant leaves over 30 million people without electricity.
Baikonur, USSR. First launch of the Soviet UR-500 launch vehicle. Designed by Chelomei, it was the first Soviet launch with storable propellant, or with propellant contained in tanks, which did not require special temperature or pressure control.
Mariner 4 passes within 9,846 km of Mars, capturing images with resolutions up to 1 km per pixel, for a total of 634 KB of data sent back to Earth. These are the first clear images of the planet. After the initial images and other
Gemini-Titan IV: McDivitt-White; first spacewalk (Extra-Vehicular Activity, EVA), performed by White (22 minutes)
Moore’s Law predicts that the number of components in a uP will double and its price will halve every year. Gordon Moore published the article “Cramming More Components onto Integrated Circuits” in the journal Electronics. He thus predicted the greatest explosion of innovation and wealth
Marshall Space Center, Huntsville, Alabama. The S-IC-T, the first stage of the Saturn V, ignites for 6.5 seconds, demonstrating its full 33,000,000 N (3,300 tons) of thrust. I visited Marshall Space Center way back in 1994, a weekend during a trip to “nearby” Tennessee. It
Leonov’s first spacewalk (Extra-Vehicular Activity, EVA) (20 minutes); in reality, the operation nearly ends in disaster: Leonov’s spacesuit inflates too much, so much so that after a while he is no longer able to move his arms and legs and is unable to re-enter the
Malcolm X (born Malcolm Little) is gunned down by his followers and replaced by Louis Abdul Farrakhan (born Louis Eugene Walcott), a calypso singer who ran Mosque 7 in Harlem. He states: “…the inferiority of the Christian religion is demonstrated by the fact that, beginning
A Saturn I (SA-9 vehicle) lifts off from Launch Complex 37-B at Cape Canaveral carrying a Pegasus satellite to test the rate and size of meteorite impacts in space.
Indonesia. Anti-communist year of living dangerously. Indonesian Communist Revolt. A failed communist uprising that leads to the killing of several Indonesian generals by rebels sparks a brutal crackdown that leaves approximately half a million people dead.