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Launching of Sputnik 1
The world's first artificial satellite was about the size of a beach ball. Took about 98 minutes to orbit the Earth on its elliptical path. -
Launch of Sputnik 2
Was the second spacecraft launched into Earth orbit, and the first to carry a living animal, a dog named Laika. -
Lunar 1 launched
launched by the USSR. It is the first man made object to orbit the Sun. -
John F. Kennedy is elected President
Elected the 35th President of the United States. -
First Russian man in space
Yuri Gagarin was the first man in space. He was sent by the Russians on the Vostok 1 space craft. -
Walter Schirra
orbits the Earth six times. -
First Russian woman in space
Valentina Tereshkova was the first woman in space sent by the Soviets. -
Assassinaton of John F. Kennedy
was fatally shot while traveling with his wife Jacqueline, Texas governor John Connally, and the latter's wife, Nellie, in a Presidential motorcade. -
Ranger 7
transmits the first close range images of the Moon. -
Venus 3 is launched
It becomes the first man made object to impact Venus on March 1, 1966. -
Lunar 10
was the first spacecraft to orbit the moon. It finished its first orbit in 3 hours. The design of the spacecraft was similar to that of Lunar 9. After the spacecraft went into orbit, the satellite separted but stayed close by. -
Launch of Apollo 1
Was scheduled to be the first manned mission of the Apollo manned lunar landing program, with a target launch date of February 21, 1967. A cabin fire during a launch pad test on January 27 at Cape Canaveral killed all three crew members and destroyed the Command Module. -
Launch of Apollo 5
Was the first unmanned flight of the Apollo Lunar Module, which would later carry astronauts to the lunar surface. -
Launch of Apollo 8
The second manned mission in the American Apollo space program, was the first human spaceflight to leave Earth orbit -
Apollo 11
was the first flight that took men to the moon and was a project of the United States. This was a great achievement because the US had reached the moon before the Soviets. -
First lunar landing
Pete Conrad and Alan Bean perform the first precision lunar landing, touching down just 600 feet from the Surveyor 3 probe that arrived two years earlier. -
Apollo 17's return to the moon
was the eleventh and final manned mission in the American Apollo space program. Apollo 17 remains the most recent manned Moon landing and the most recent manned flight beyond low Earth orbit.
