In 1983 Sally Ride became the third woman in space overall, after USSR cosmonauts Valentina Tereshkova (1963) and Svetlana Savitskaya (1982). Ride was part of NASA Astronaut Group 8, in 1978, the first class to select women. NASA Astronaut Group 8 included Guion Bluford, the first African American to go to space, and Judith Resnik and Ellison Onizuka, who perished in the 1986 Challenger Shuttle explosion.
Ellison Onizuka was the first Asian American and the first person of Japanese ancestry to reach space.
“Mustang Sally” is a rhythm and blues song written and first recorded by Mack Rice in 1965.It gained greater popularity when Wilson Pickett covered it the following year on a single/
It also got considerable air play in 1983, as it contained the lyric “All you want to do is ride around Sally, ride Sally ride.” Some spectators in the crowd attending the Challenger launch wore T-shirts with the lyric printed on it.
On March 18, 1965, USSR Cosmonaut Alexi Leonov became the first man to walk in space. On June 3, 1965, American Astronaut Ed White became the first American to walk in space.
“Soviet” is a word meaning “council” or “assembly” and referred to the fact that the various republics were nominally governed by “soviets,” councils of legislators.
Arthur C. Clarke named the Soviet spacecraft in his novel 2010: Odyssey Two (filmed by Peter Hyams as 2010: The Year We Make Contact) the Leonov, after his friend the Russian astronaut. Alexei Leonov is still alive and now 85.
George Orwell suggested the title Union des républiques socialistes animales for the French translation of his novel Animal Farm, which abbreviates to URSA, the Latin word for “bear”, a symbol of Russia. It also played on the French name of the Soviet Union, Union des républiques socialistes soviétiques.
Marianne, a portrayal of the “Goddess of Liberty,” is one of the most prominent symbols of the French Republic, and she is seen as a personification of reason and liberty.
Leonard Cohen’s song “So Long Marianne” was inspired by Marianne Ihlen Jensen, whom Cohen met on the Greek island of Hydra in 1960. The two became a couple, living together throughout the 1960’s, commuting between New York, Montreal, and Hydra.
Cohen dedicated his third volume of poetry, Flowers for Hitler, to her, and she directly inspired many of his other songs and poems. A photo of her appears on the back cover of his second album, Songs from a Room.
Mariannedied on July 28, 2016, aged 81. Cohen wrote to her shortly before her death, saying: “Know that I am so close behind you that if you stretch out your hand, I think you can reach mine… Goodbye old friend. Endless love, see you down the road.” He died three months later, on November 7, 2016.
Astronaut John Glenn’s passing on 08 December 2016 means that the first seven American astronauts chosen to lead the fledging US space program in 1959 are now dead. They were known as the Mercury 7.
In 1935, the Bank of Canada issued its first series of Bank-notes. Each note had an allegorical image of an economic sector on the reverse. The allegory on the two dollar note was “Transportation” with a prominent depiction of Mercury.
Mercury is the only metal that is liquid at room temperature, but a few others will melt into liquid not far above it. Cesium melts at 28.5C/ 83F, gallium will melt at 30c/86F, and rubidium at 39c (but watch out - it may spontaneously catch fire!)
Though it is a matter of eternal debate among music critics and fans of the genre, most heavy metal fans credit Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin (both of which were founded in 1968) as the first true heavy metal bands.
Ferdinand von Zeppelin, a German nobleman and army officer, served as an official observer with the Union Army in Virginia during the American Civil War. Von Zeppelin then travelled to St. Paul, Minnesota, where the German-born former Army balloonist John Steiner offered tethered flights. His first ascent in a balloon, made at Saint Paul during this visit, is said to have been the inspiration of his later interest in aeronautics.
The following astronauts were all born in Virginia: Guy Gardner, David McDowell Brown, Mark T. Vande Hei, William Oefelein, John L. Phillips, Robert Satcher, Leland D. Melvin, Peter Wisoff, Ken Bowersox, and Joe F. Edwards, Jr.
John Philip Sousa, known as the ‘American March King’ is probably best known for his works Stars and Stripes Forever and Semper Fidelis. But over the course of his career, Sousa wrote 137 marches, 15 operettas, 5 overtures, 11 suites, 24 dances, 28 fantasies, and 322 arrangements of nineteenth-century western European symphonic works.
The Ohio Light Opera, based in Wooster, Ohio, performed Sousa’s seldom-staged 1896 operetta El Capitan, set in a fictionalized Spanish-ruled Peru, in 2010.
Of the twelve astronauts to walk on the moon, three were born in Texas — the most of any state: Edgar Mitchell (Apollo 14), David Scott (Apollo 15), and Alan Bean (Apollo 12).
Only one such astronaut was born in Ohio: Neil Armstrong.
Of the fifty US states, astronauts were born in every state except Nevada and Wyoming.
El Capitan is a 3,000 vertical feet rock formation in Yosemite National Park in California. It is considered the largest granite monolith in the world, being formed from a single chunk of granite.
It is a popular objective for rock climbers, and over thirty climbing deaths have been recorded between 1905 and 2018. The recent increase in fatalities (five deaths from 2013 to 2018) is partly due to increased pressure to break speed records as well as social media fame and competition for deals with equipment manufacturers or advertisers.
Sally Ride, (1951–2012), the first American woman in space, was born in California.
Astronauts John Young was born in San Francisco California. He was a veteran of two Gemini space missions, two Apollo space missions, and two STS Space Shuttle missions. On Apollo 16, John Young and Charlie Duke became the 9th and 10th men to walk on the moon, of a total of 12 men. They spent 71 hours on the lunar surface, during which they conducted three moonwalks totaling 20 hours and 14 minutes. They drove the Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV), the second produced and used on the Moon for 16.6 miles.
Actress Daryl Hannah had long-term relationships with musician Jackson Browne, John F. Kennedy Jr, and Neil Young, who she reportedly married in August 2018. Young confirmed his marriage to Hannah in October 2018.
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