Category Archives: On This Day

Anniversary of Flag Raising at Iwo Jima

Posted on February 23, 2026 by James| Leave a comment

Wikipedia Article

Posted in Anniversary, Because I Can, Events, On This Day, Patriotic

In Remembrance – Space Shuttle Columbia & Crew

Posted on February 1, 2026 by James| Comments Off on In Remembrance – Space Shuttle Columbia & Crew

On February 1, 2003, the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during re-entry on its 28th mission; all seven crew members aboard perished.

Columbia Launch STS-107
Columbia launches on its final mission, STS-107.
Columbia STS-107 Crew
The crew of STS-107. L to R: Brown, Husband, Clark, Chawla, Anderson, McCool, Ramon.
Columbia STS-107 Mission Patch
Columbia STS-107 Mission Patch.

Wikipedia Link

Posted in Anniversary, Because I Can, On This Day, Patriotic, Planes Trains and Automobiles

40th Anniversary of the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster

Posted on January 28, 2026 by James| Comments Off on 40th Anniversary of the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster

On January 28, 1986 at 11:39 EST, the Space Shuttle Challenger disintegrated 73 seconds into its flight after an O-ring seal in its right solid rocket booster (SRB) failed at liftoff.  All seven astronauts on board were lost.

Challenger STS-51 at Launch
Challenger launches on its final mission, STS-51.
Challenger STS-51 Crew
The crew of STS-51. Front row, from left to right: Smith, Scobee, and McNair. Back row, from left to right: Onizuka, McAuliffe, Jarvis, and Resnik.
Challenger STS-51 Mission Patch
STS-51 mission patch.

Wikipedia Link

Posted in Anniversary, Because I Can, On This Day, Patriotic, Planes Trains and Automobiles

Anniversary of the Apollo 1 Tragedy

Posted on January 27, 2026 by James| Comments Off on Anniversary of the Apollo 1 Tragedy

59 years ago today, January 27, 1967, tragedy struck the U.S. space program when Apollo 1 caught fire during a pre-launch test on the launch pad at Cape Kennedy, killing astronauts Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, Edward H. White II, and Roger B. Chaffee.

The fire broke out inside the command module during a “plugs-out” test, where a high-pressure pure oxygen environment allowed the flames to spread in seconds. The loss of Grissom, White, and Chaffee stunned the nation and led to sweeping changes in spacecraft design, safety procedures, and testing protocols—changes that ultimately made future Apollo missions, including the Moon landings, possible.

Their sacrifice forever shaped human spaceflight.

Story on NASA’s website

Posted in Anniversary, Because I Can, On This Day, Patriotic

Frisbee!

Posted on January 23, 2026 by James| Comments Off on Frisbee!

On this day in 1957, machines at the Wham-O toy company roll out the first batch of their aerodynamic plastic discs–now known to millions of fans all over the world as Frisbees.

Posted in Anniversary, Because I Can, On This Day

Pan Am Flight 103 explodes over Scotland

Posted on December 21, 2025 by James| Comments Off on Pan Am Flight 103 explodes over Scotland

On December 21, 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 from London to New York explodes in midair over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all 243 passengers and 16 crew members aboard, as well as 11 Lockerbie residents on the ground. A bomb hidden inside an audio cassette player detonated in the cargo area when the plane was at an altitude of 31,000 feet. The disaster, which became the subject of Britain’s largest criminal investigation, was believed to be an attack against the United States. One hundred eighty nine of the victims were American.

Wikipedia Link

Posted in Anniversary, Because I Can, On This Day, Planes Trains and Automobiles

Pearl Harbor

Posted on December 7, 2025 by James| Comments Off on Pearl Harbor
Read more »

Posted in Anniversary, Because I Can, On This Day, Patriotic

John F. Kennedy

Posted on November 22, 2025 by James| Comments Off on John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917–November 22, 1963)

The assassination of John F. Kennedy, the thirty-fifth President of the United States, took place on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas, USA at 12:30 p.m. CST (18:30 UTC). John F. Kennedy was fatally wounded by gunshots while riding with his wife Jacqueline in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza. Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald, an employee of the Texas School Book Depository in Dealey Plaza, according to the conclusions of multiple government investigations, including the ten-month investigation of the Warren Commission of 1963-4 and the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) of 1976-9. This conclusion initially met with widespread support among the American public, but polls, since the original 1966 Gallup poll, show a majority of the public hold beliefs contrary to these findings. The assassination is still the subject of widespread speculation and has spawned numerous conspiracy theories (even the HSCA, based on disputed acoustical evidence, concluded that Oswald may have had unspecified co-conspirators), though these theories have not generally been accepted by mainstream historians and no single compelling alternative theory has emerged.

Posted in Anniversary, Because I Can, On This Day, Patriotic

50th Anniversary of the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

Posted on November 10, 2025 by James| Comments Off on 50th Anniversary of the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald
Edmund Fitzgerald

The SS Edmund Fitzgerald, May 1975.

SS Edmund Fitzgerald was a cargo ship that sank suddenly during a gale storm on November 10, 1975, while on Lake Superior. The ship went down without a distress signal in 530 feet (162 m) of water at 46°59.9′N 85°6.6′W, in Canadian waters about 17 miles (15 nm; 27 km) from the entrance to Whitefish Bay. All 29 members of the crew perished. Gordon Lightfoot‘s hit song, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, helped make the incident the most famous marine disaster in the history of Great Lakes shipping.

Read more »

Posted in Anniversary, Because I Can, On This Day

Anniversary of “Sesame Street” Debut

Posted on November 10, 2025 by James| Comments Off on Anniversary of “Sesame Street” Debut

On November 10, 1969, “Sesame Street,” a pioneering TV show that would teach generations of young children the alphabet and how to count, makes its broadcast debut. “Sesame Street,” with its memorable theme song (“Can you tell me how to get/How to get to Sesame Street”), went on to become the most widely viewed children’s program in the world. It has aired in more than 120 countries.

Wikipedia Article

Posted in Anniversary, Because I Can, On This Day, The Little Screen (Television)

War of the Worlds

Posted on October 30, 2025 by James| Comments Off on War of the Worlds

This day In Radio History, Oct 30, 1938 – Panic Over War of the Worlds

A radio broadcast of H. G. Wells “The War of the Worlds”, narrated by Orson Welles, allegedly causes a mass panic.


“The War of the Worlds” was a Halloween episode of the radio series The Mercury Theatre on the Air directed and narrated by Orson Welles as an adaptation of H. G. Wells’s novel The War of the Worlds (1898) that was performed and broadcast live at 8 pm ET on October 30, 1938 over the CBS Radio Network. The episode is famous for inciting a panic by convincing some members of the listening audience that a Martian invasion was taking place, though the scale of panic is disputed, as the program had relatively few listeners.

Posted in Anniversary, Because I Can, Literary, On This Day

Today…

Posted on October 29, 2025 by James| Comments Off on Today…

In 1886, the ticker-tape parade is invented in New York City when office workers spontaneously throw ticket tape into the streets as the Statue of Liberty is dedicated.

In 1929, the New York Stock Exchange crashes in what will be called the Crash of ’29 or Black Tuesday, ending the Great Bull Market of the 1920s and beginning the Great Depression.

In 1960, in Louisville, Kentucky, Cassius Clay (who later takes the name Muhammad Ali) wins his first professional fight.

In 1969, the first-ever computer-to-computer link is established on ARPANET, the precursor to the Internet.

In 1998, Space Shuttle Discovery blasts-off with 77-year old John Glenn on board, making him the oldest person to go into space. He became the first American to orbit Earth on February 20, 1962.

Posted in Anniversary, Because I Can, On This Day

Anniversary of Yeager Breaking the Sound Barrier

Posted on October 14, 2025 by James| Comments Off on Anniversary of Yeager Breaking the Sound Barrier
yeager_glamorous_glennis

U.S. Air Force Captain Chuck Yeager becomes the first person to fly faster than the speed of sound.

Yeager, born in Myra, West Virginia, in 1923, was a combat fighter during World War II and flew 64 missions over Europe. He shot down 13 German planes and was himself shot down over France, but he escaped capture with the assistance of the French Underground. After the war, he was among several volunteers chosen to test-fly the experimental X-1 rocket plane, built by the Bell Aircraft Company to explore the possibility of supersonic flight.

For years, many aviators believed that man was not meant to fly faster than the speed of sound, theorizing that transonic drag rise would tear any aircraft apart. All that changed on October 14, 1947, when Yeager flew the X-1 over Rogers Dry Lake in Southern California. The X-1 was lifted to an altitude of 25,000 feet by a B-29 aircraft and then released through the bomb bay, rocketing to 40,000 feet and exceeding 662 miles per hour (the sound barrier at that altitude). The rocket plane, nicknamed “Glamorous Glennis,” was designed with thin, unswept wings and a streamlined fuselage modeled after a .50-caliber bullet.

Because of the secrecy of the project, Bell and Yeager’s achievement was not announced until June 1948. Yeager continued to serve as a test pilot, and in 1953 he flew 1,650 miles per hour in an X-1A rocket plane. He retired from the U.S. Air Force in 1975 with the rank of brigadier general.

Posted in Anniversary, On This Day, Planes Trains and Automobiles

Anniversary of White Christmas

Posted on October 14, 2025 by James| Comments Off on Anniversary of White Christmas
White Christmas
The film was released in theaters October 14, 1954.

White Christmas is a 1954 movie starring Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye that featured the songs of Irving Berlin, including the titular White Christmas.

Wikipedia Link

Posted in Anniversary, Because I Can, On This Day, The Little Screen (Television)

October 06, 1866: First U.S. train robbery

Posted on October 6, 2025 by James| Comments Off on October 06, 1866: First U.S. train robbery

On this day in 1866, the Reno gang carries out the first robbery of a moving train in the U.S., making off with over $10,000 from an Ohio & Mississippi train in Jackson County, Indiana. Prior to this innovation in crime, holdups had taken place only on trains sitting at stations or freight yards.

Posted in Anniversary, On This Day

Anniversary of Dr. No

Posted on October 5, 2025 by James| Comments Off on Anniversary of Dr. No

On October 5, 1962, the 1st James Bond film, Dr. No, premiered in London (it would arrive in the US the 8th of May of 1963).

Dr. No poster

Posted in Anniversary, Because I Can, On This Day, The Big Screen

The Andy Griffith show premiered – 65th Anniversary

Posted on October 3, 2025 by James| Comments Off on The Andy Griffith show premiered – 65th Anniversary

The Andy Griffith Show is an American sitcom television series that was aired on CBS from October 3, 1960, to April 1, 1968, with a total of 249 half-hour episodes spanning eight seasons—159 in black and white and 90 in color.

Posted in Anniversary, Humor, On This Day, The Little Screen (Television)

September 30, 1954: USS Nautilus commissioned

Posted on September 30, 2025 by James| Comments Off on September 30, 1954: USS Nautilus commissioned

The USS Nautilus, the world’s first nuclear submarine, is commissioned by the U.S. Navy.

The Nautilus was constructed under the direction of U.S. Navy Captain Hyman G. Rickover, a brilliant Russian-born engineer who joined the U.S. atomic program in 1946. In 1947, he was put in charge of the navy’s nuclear-propulsion program and began work on an atomic submarine. Regarded as a fanatic by his detractors, Rickover succeeded in developing and delivering the world’s first nuclear submarine years ahead of schedule. In 1952, the Nautilus‘ keel was laid by President Harry S. Truman, and on January 21, 1954, first lady Mamie Eisenhower broke a bottle of champagne across its bow as it was launched into the Thames River at Groton, Connecticut. Commissioned on September 30, 1954, it first ran under nuclear power on the morning of January 17, 1955.

Posted in Anniversary, On This Day

65th Anniversary of The Flintstones

Posted on September 30, 2025 by James| Comments Off on 65th Anniversary of The Flintstones

The Flintstones was an animated American television sitcom that ran from September 30, 1960 to April 1, 1966 on ABC. Produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions, The Flintstones is about a working class Stone Age man’s life with his family and his next door neighbor and best friend. It has since been re-released on both DVD and VHS.

Critics and fans alike agree that the show was an animated imitation of The Honeymooners with rock puns thrown in. William Hanna admitted that “At that time “The Honeymooners” was the most popular show on the air, and for my bill, it was the funniest show on the air. The characters, I thought, were terrific. Now, that influenced greatly what we did with “The Flintstones”… “The Honeymooners” was there, and we used that as a kind of basis for the concept.” However Joseph Barbera disavowed these claims in a separate interview, stating that “I don’t remember mentioning “The Honeymooners” when I sold the show, but if people want to compare “The Flintstones” to “The Honeymooners,” then great. It’s a total compliment. “The Honeymooners” was one of the greatest shows ever written.” Its popularity rested heavily on its juxtaposition of modern-day concerns in the Stone Age setting.

Posted in Anniversary, Because I Can, On This Day, The Little Screen (Television)

Anniversary of The Jetsons

Posted on September 23, 2025 by James| Comments Off on Anniversary of The Jetsons
Jetsons

On September 23, 1962, the Jetsons premiered on ABC.

The Jetsons is a prime-time animated American sitcom that was produced by Hanna-Barbera, originally airing from 1962–63 and again from 1985–87. It was Hanna-Barbera’s Space Age counterpart to The Flintstones, a half-hour family sitcom projecting contemporary American culture and lifestyle into another time period. While the Flintstones live in a world with machines powered by birds and dinosaurs, the Jetsons live in a futuristic utopia in the year 2062 of elaborate robotic contraptions, aliens, holograms, and whimsical inventions.

The original incarnation of the series aired Sunday nights on ABC from September 23, 1962, to March 3, 1963. It comprised 24 episodes, and was re-run on Saturday morning for decades. At the time of its debut, it was the first program ever to be broadcast in color on ABC-TV (as The Flintstones, while always produced in color, was broadcast in black-and-white for its first two seasons). Its continuing popularity led to further episodes being produced for syndication between 1985 and 1987.

 Wikipedia Link

Posted in Anniversary, Because I Can, On This Day, The Little Screen (Television)