In 1960 – The United States launched Navy Transit 1-B. It demonstrated the first engine restart in space and more famously the feasiblity of using satellites as navigational aids, proving systems like GPS would work.

In 1970 – The crew of Apollo 13 heard a sharp bang and vibration followed by a warning light. Jack Swigert radioed back the famous words “Houston, we’ve had a problem here.”

In 1974 – Western Union, NASA and Hughes Aircraft, teamed up to launch the United States’ first commercial geosynchronous communications satellite, Westar 1. The system relayed data, voice, video, and fax transmissions to the continental U.S., Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Alaska, and the Virgin islands.

In 1961 – Yuri Gagarin of the USSR made a 108-minute orbital flight in the Vostok 1 spacecraft, becoming the first human in space.

In 1981 – Commander John Young and Pilot Robert Crippen crewed the first launch of a Space Shuttle, The Columbia on the STS-1 mission. During the mission they used an HP-41 calculator to calculate the exact angle at which they needed to re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere.

In 1994 – Immigration Lawyers Laurence Canter and Martha Siegel intentionally posted to more than 6,000 Usenet discussion groups about their green card services. It is considered the first occurrence of commercial spam.

In 1936 – German computer pioneer Konrad Zuse filed for a patent for the automatic execution of calculations, and described combination memory, an early form of programmable memory. Zuse was working on what would become German’s first computer, the Z-1.

In 1957 – The Ryan X-13 Vertijet took off from Edwards Air Force base flew for a few minutes and landed. The significant part of the short flight was that it took off and landed vertically, becoming the first jet capable of doing so.

In 1970 – The ill-fated Apollo 13 launched from Kennedy Space Center. The second-stage inboard engine shut down early but orbital insertion was achieved. However the problems were not over.