July 20
Today is
Space
Exploration Day. 1865: The Patent Act of 1865 required that patent fees to be turned over to
the U.S. Treasury. 1937: Radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi died. 1942: The first unit of WAC's (Women's Army Corps) began
basic training. 1960: The submerged USS
George Washington off the coast of Cape Canaveral, FL, executed the first test launch
of a pair of Polaris missile from a submarine at sea. 1969: At 4:18 EDT, the
Apollo 11 lunar module
landed at the Sea of Tranquility, and later astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz"
Aldrin became the first men to walk on the moon; they left an American flag and a plaque
inscribed with, "Here men from the planet Earth first set foot on the Moon--July 1969
A.D.--We came in peace for all mankind." 1976: NASA's
Viking I
Lander made the first-ever successful landing on Mars. 1995:
Inventure Place, home
of the National Inventors Hall of Fame, was dedicated in Akron, OH. 1999: After 38 years
at the bottom of the Atlantic, the
Liberty Bell 7 Mercury capsule was recovered.
| Jan
| Feb | Mar |
Apr | May |
Jun | Jul |
Aug | Sep |
Oct | Nov |
Dec |
Note: These
historical tidbits have been collected from various sources, mostly on the Internet.
As detailed in
this article, there
is a lot of wrong information that is repeated hundreds of times because most websites
do not validate with authoritative sources. On RF Cafe, events with
hyperlinks have been verified. Many years ago,
I began commemorating the birthdays of notable people and events with
special RF Cafe logos.
Where available, I like to use images from postage stamps from the country where
the person or event occurred. Images used in the logos are often from open source
websites like Wikipedia, and are specifically credited with a hyperlink back to
the source where possible.
Fair Use laws permit
small samples of copyrighted content.
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