Quotes :

Ham the Chimp Becomes First Hominid Launched into Outer Space (1961) Ham was chosen from 40 chimpanzee flight candidates at New Mexico's Holloman Air Force Base to be the first hominid launched into outer space. He was named after an acronym for the lab that prepared him for his historic mission—the Holloman Aerospace Medical Center—and was trained to do simple tasks. In 1961, he was launched into space in a Project ...
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (1968) The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons is an international agreement to limit the spread of nuclear weapons. It was originally signed by the US, Britain, the USSR, and 59 other countries in 1968. The major signatories agreed not to help nonnuclear states obtain or produce nuclear weapons, while the nonnuclear signatories agreed not to try to obtain them. ...
Lateran Treaty Signed Between Italy and the Vatican (1929) The Lateran Treaty ended the political dispute between the Italian government and the Papacy that began when Italy took Rome as its capital in 1871 and limited papal sovereignty to just a few buildings. The treaty created Vatican City and gave the Holy See sovereignty there. Though Italy was under fascist control when the treaty was signed, successive governments have ...
Launch Begins the Space Race (1957) The first artificial satellite, Sputnik I, was launched by the USSR in 1957 and spurred the dormant US space program into action, leading to an international competition popularly known as the "space race." Explorer I, the first American satellite, was launched just months later, in January 1958. In the decade that followed, the US and the USSR launched approximately 50 ...
The Space Elevator A space elevator is a hypothetical megastructure capable of transporting material from Earth—or another celestial body—into space without the use of rockets. The concept was first conceived by Russian inventor Konstantin Tsiolkovsky in 1895. Many of today's proposed designs incorporate tensile towers built out of advanced materials like carbon nanotubes, which are very strong and lightweight. By 1978, technology had ...