This Day In History — USSR launches Luna 1

January 02

1492
Muhammad XI, the leader of the last Arab stronghold in Spain, surrendered to King Ferdinand II and Queen Isabella I.

1788
Georgia was admitted to the Union as the 4th state.

1839
Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre took the first photograph of the Moon.

1905
The Russo-Japanese war ended.

1923
The African-American town of Rosewood, Fla., was burned by a white mob.

1935
The Bruno R. Hauptmann trial began for the kidnap and murder of the Lindbergh baby.

1959
The first spacecraft to fly by the Moon and also to orbit the Sun, Mechta (Luna 1) was launched by the USSR.

1994
Rudolph Giuliani is inaugurated as New York City’s mayor.

Birthdays

Isaac Asimov
1920–1992, American author, scientist.

James Wolfe
British general (1727)

Rudolf Clausius
mathematical physicist (1822)

Henry Flagler
financier (1830)

Ernst Barlach
expressionist sculptor, graphic artist (1870)

Saint Theresa
Carmelite nun (1873)

Michael Tippett
composer (1905)

Dennis Hastert
congressman (1942)

Cuba Gooding, Jr.
actor (1968)

Taye Diggs
actor (1972)

Sound Off!

Top