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. 2005:
Death Valley, CA recorded a temperature of 53.9°C (129°F).
| 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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