2007

Today in History 08/07 (Philippe Petit)

Philippe Petit walks across a tightrope suspended between the World Trade Center's Twin Towers in New York on Aug 7, 1974 (© Alan Welner/AP)(1974) High-wire artist walks between the Twin Towers
Frenchman Philippe Petit walks out onto a cable he’s illegally rigged 1,350 feet in the air between the Twin Towers of New York City’s World Trade Center. Petit performs a 45-minute high-wire act, complete with a bit of joyful dancing, to the cheers of astounded onlookers.
Philippe Petit is a French high-wire artist who gained fame for his high-wire walk between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, on the morning of August 7, 1974 as well as his high wire walk between the towers of Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, 1971. For his unauthorized feat 400 metres above the ground – which he referred to as “le coup” – he rigged a 200-kilogram cable and used a custom-made 8-metre long, 25-kilogram balancing pole. He performed for 45 minutes, making eight passes along the wire. The following week, he celebrated his 25th birthday. All charges were dismissed in exchange for him doing a performance in Central Park for children.
Born: Aug 13, 1949 (age 68) · Nemours, France
Height: 5′ 7″
Nationality: French
Parents: Edmond Petit (Father)

Philippe Petit 2009
Philippe Petit at the 81st Academy Awards
wiki/Philippe_Petit
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(1974) High-wire artist walks between the Twin Towers.
Also on this day,

1789 | Congress shines a spotlight on lighthouses
US Congress approves an act for the establishment and support of lighthouse, beacons, buoys, and public piers. In 1989, Congress will mark the 200th anniversary of the signing by declaring August 7 as National Lighthouse Day.
1959 | Earth is ready for its close-up as Explorer 6 launches
NASA’s Explorer 6 satellite blasts off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, to orbit the Earth on a 60-day mission. A UHF transmitter will send back the first satellite TV image of the Earth from orbit a few days later, beginning an era of astounding portraits of our planet.
2007 | Barry Bonds breaks Hank Aaron’s record
Barry Bonds hits his 756th career home run, breaking Hank Aaron’s record. The 2007 season will be Bonds’ last, and he’ll finish with 762. His career, however , will also be remembered for his legal troubles related to the BALCO steroids scandal.

Today in History 08/07/17

Explorer 6 satellite (© NASA)(1959) Earth is ready for its close-up as Explorer 6 launches
NASA's Explorer 6 satellite blasts off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, to orbit the Earth on a 60-day mission. A UHF transmitter will send back the first satellite TV image of the Earth from orbit a few days later, beginning an era of astounding portraits of our planet.
Explorer 6, or S-2, was an American satellite launched on August 7, 1959. It was a small, spheroidal satellite designed to study trapped radiation of various energies, galactic cosmic rays, geomagnetism, radio propagation in the upper atmosphere, and the flux of micrometeorites. It also tested a scanning device designed for photographing the Earth's cloud cover, and transmitted the first pictures of Earth from orbit.
Date: Aug 07, 1959
Thor-Able III Explorer 6 Launch
The launch of Explorer 6

wiki/Explorer_6
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Today in History 01/09/17

West Indian Manatee, Florida (© Reinhard Dirscherl/Getty Images)(1493) Columbus sights “mermaids” in Caribbean waters
Half a year into his first transatlantic voyage, Spanish explorer Christopher Columbus spots manatees, mistakes them for mythical mermaids, and declares them “not half as beautiful as they are painted.”
Christopher Columbus was an Italian explorer, navigator, colonizer, and citizen of the Republic of Genoa. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean. Those voyages and his efforts to establish permanent settlements on the island of Hispaniola initiated the European colonization of the New World.
Lived: 1451 – May 20, 1506
Height: 6′ 0″ (1.83 m)
Spouse: Filipa Moniz Perestrelo (m. 1479)
Partner: Beatriz Enríquez de Arana (1487 – 1506)
Children: Diego Columbus (Son) · Ferdinand Columbus (Son)
Parents: Domenico Colombo (Father) · Susanna Fontanarossa (Mother)
Highlights
    1479: Christopher Columbus married Filipa Moniz Perestrelo in 1479.
  • 1492: During his first voyage in 1492, the brisk trade winds from the east, commonly called “easterlies”, propelled Columbus’s fleet for five weeks, from the Canary Islands to The Bahamas.

  • 1492: After continually lobbying at the Spanish court and two years of negotiations, he finally had success in January 1492.

  • 1493: After departing, and after reportedly being saved from assassins by King John, Columbus crossed the bar of Saltes and entered the harbor of Palos de la Frontera on 15 March 1493.

  • 1493: Columbus left the port of Cádiz on 24 September 1493, with a fleet of 17 ships carrying 1,200 men and the supplies to establish permanent colonies in the New World.

  • 1502: Accompanied by his brother Bartolomeo and his 13-year-old son Fernando, he left Cádiz on 11 May 1502, with his flagship Santa María and the vessels Gallega, Vizcaína, and Santiago de Palos.

wiki/Christopher_Columbus
Wood engraving of the steamship Star of the West, 1861 (© Library of Congress)(1861) First shots fired in lead-up to Civil War
Three months before the official start of the American Civil War, cannon fire does minor damage to the Star of the West, a Union merchant ship sailing towards Ft. Sumter, South Carolina, to deliver supplies.
Star of the West was an American civilian steamship, launched in 1852 and scuttled by Confederate forces in 1863. In January 1861, she was hired by the United States government to transport military supplies and reinforcements to the U.S. military garrison of Fort Sumter, but was fired on by cadets from The Citadel, in what were effectively the first shots fired in the American Civil War.
Launched: Jun 17, 1852

wiki/Star_of_the_West
Ernest Hemingway outside of his residence at 113 rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs, Paris (© Ernest Hemingway Collection/John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum)(1922) Ernest Hemingway rents his first Paris apartment
A 22-year-old Ernest Hemingway in Paris moves into a small walk-up in Paris’ Latin Quarter. In Paris, the future Nobel Prize-winning writer will complete some of his most memorable fiction and hobnob with many of the most important artists of the 20th century.
Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American novelist, short story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the mid-1950s, and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. He published seven novels, six short story collections, and two non-fiction works. Additional works, including three novels, four short story collections, and three non-fiction works, were published posthumously. Many of his works are considered classics of American literature.
Lived: Jul 21, 1899 – Jul 02, 1961 (age 61)
Height: 6′ 0″ (1.83 m)
Spouse: Mary Welsh Hemingway (m. 1946 – 1961) · Martha Gellhorn (m. 1940 – 1945) · Pauline Pfeiffer (m. 1927 – 1940) · Hadley Richardson (m. 1921 – 1927)
Children: Jack Hemingway (Son) · Gregory Hemingway (Son) · Patrick Hemingway (Son)
Related movies: Hemingway & Gellhorn
Awards: Nobel Prize in Literature (1954) · Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (1953) · Bronze Star Medal (1947)

wiki/Ernest_Hemingway
Apple CEO Steve Jobs holds up the new iPhone that was introduced at Macworld on Jan. 9, 2007 in San Francisco, California (© David Paul Morris/Getty Images)(2007) Steve Jobs introduces the first iPhone
Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveils a cell phone he dubs “revolutionary and magical,” and the touchscreen device becomes the first in a line of iPhones that will go on to sell hundreds of millions of units.
The iPhone, is the first smartphone model designed and marketed by Apple. It is the first generation of iPhone that was announced on January 9, 2007 after years of rumors and speculation.
It was introduced in the United States on June 29, 2007, and it featured quad-band GSM cellular connectivity with GPRS and EDGE support for data transfer.
On June 9, 2008, Apple announced its successor, the iPhone 3G. The original iPhone has not received software updates from Apple after iPhone OS 3.1.3.
Since June 11, 2013, the original iPhone has been considered “obsolete” in Apple retail stores, “vintage” by other service providers in the US, and “obsolete” in all other regions. Apple does not service vintage or obsolete products, and replacement parts for obsolete products are not available to service providers.
wiki/IPhone_(1st_generation)
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