1978: NOAA announces gender-neutral hurricane naming system
Federal News Network presents a daily update of important moments in the history of the U.S. government.
NASA was established in 1958 to keep U.S. space efforts abreast of recent Soviet achievements, starting with the world’s first artificial satellite: Sputnik 1 in 1957. On April 12, 1961, the Soviet space program won the race when cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was launched into space, put in orbit around the planet, and safely returned to Earth. One month later, Navy Commander Alan Shepard’s suborbital flight took off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, with the the Freedom 7 space capsule. The flight lasted 15 minutes and reached a height of 116 miles into the atmosphere, making Shepard the first American astronaut to travel into space.
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