Today in History:

July 11, 1979

The United States’ first space station, Skylab, made its dramatic and unplanned return to Earth. Launched in 1973, Skylab was a pioneering orbital laboratory that hosted three crewed missions and provided invaluable data on life in space. But six years later, its time in orbit came to a fiery end.

Originally designed to remain in space for a decade or more, Skylab’s fate was sealed by increased solar activity, which expanded Earth’s atmosphere and increased drag on the station. Despite NASA’s efforts to reboost its orbit, plans to save Skylab fell through when the Space Shuttle program—intended to assist in its rescue—was delayed.

As Skylab reentered Earth’s atmosphere on July 11, 1979, it broke apart and scattered debris across the Indian Ocean and sparsely populated areas of Western Australia. The event sparked global attention and even a bit of humor. The town of Perth, Australia, famously turned on all its lights in a symbolic gesture of welcome—or warning—for the falling station. One unfortunate casualty was reported: a lone cow, struck by falling debris, became the only known victim of Skylab’s descent.

Despite the unexpected crash, no human injuries occurred, and the incident served as a wake-up call for future space missions regarding orbital debris and reentry planning.

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Also of interest on July 11th

1796 – The United States takes possession of Detroit from Great Britain under terms of the Jay Treaty.

1798 – The United States Marine Corps is re-established; they had been disbanded after the American Revolutionary War.

1801 – French astronomer Jean-Louis Pons makes his first comet discovery. In the next 27 years he discovers another 36 comets, more than any other person in history.

1804A duel occurs in which the Vice President of the United States Aaron Burr mortally wounds former Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton.

1848Waterloo railway station in London opens.

1889Tijuana, Mexico, is founded.

1897Salomon August Andrée leaves Spitsbergen to attempt to reach the North Pole by balloon.

1914Babe Ruth makes his debut in Major League Baseball.

1914 – The US Navy launches the USS Nevada (BB-36) as its first standard-type battleship.

1922 – The Hollywood Bowl opens.

1934Engelbert Zaschka of Germany flies his large human-powered aircraft, the Zaschka Human-Power Aircraft, about 20 meters at Berlin Tempelhof Airport without assisted take-off.

1936 – The Triborough Bridge in New York City is opened to traffic.

1960 – To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is first published, in the United States.

1962 – First transatlantic satellite television transmission.

1962 – Project Apollo: At a press conference, NASA announces lunar orbit rendezvous as the means to land astronauts on the Moon, and return them to Earth.

1972 – The first game of the World Chess Championship 1972 between challenger Bobby Fischer and defending champion Boris Spassky starts.

1979 – America’s first space station, Skylab, is destroyed as it re-enters the Earth’s atmosphere over the Indian Ocean.

1990Oka Crisis: First Nations land dispute in Quebec begins.

2021Virgin Galactic launches its founder, Richard Branson, into space, the first company ever to do so.

Births on This Day

1653Sarah Good, American woman accused of witchcraft (died 1692)

1760Peggy Shippen, American wife of Benedict Arnold and American Revolutionary War spy (died 1804)

1767John Quincy Adams, American lawyer and politician, 6th President of the United States (died 1848)

1834James Abbott McNeill Whistler, American-English painter and illustrator (died 1903)

1920Yul Brynner, Russian actor and dancer (died 1985)

1934Giorgio Armani, Italian fashion designer, founded the Armani Company

1947Jeff Hanna, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and drummer

1950 – Bonnie Pointer, American singer (died 2020)

1952 – Stephen Lang, American actor and playwright

1953 – Leon Spinks, American boxer (died 2021)

1953 – Mindy Sterling, American actress

1956 – Sela Ward, American actress

1959Richie Sambora, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer

1959 – Suzanne Vega, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer

1963 – Lisa Rinna, American actress and talk show host

1965 – Scott Shriner, American singer-songwriter and bass player

1970Justin Chambers, American actor

1972 – Michael Rosenbaum, American actor

1978Kathleen Edwards, Canadian singer-songwriter and guitarist

Deaths on This Day

1937George Gershwin, American pianist, songwriter, and composer (born 1898)

1989Laurence Olivier, English actor, director, and producer (born 1907)

1994Gary Kildall, American computer scientist, founded Digital Research (born 1942)

1999 – Jan Sloot, Dutch computer scientist and electronics technician (born 1945)

2004Laurance Rockefeller, American financier and philanthropist (born 1910)

2007 – Lady Bird Johnson, American beautification activist; 43rd First Lady of the United States (born 1912)

2007 – Ed Mirvish, American-Canadian businessman and philanthropist, founded Honest Ed’s (born 1914)

2014 – Tommy Ramone, Hungarian-American drummer and producer (born 1949)

2015 – Satoru Iwata, Japanese game programmer and businessman (born 1959)

2024Shelley Duvall, American actress (born 1949)

Holidays Today


July 11 | Holidays, Birthdays, Events

The Funnies:

AI Contribution of the Day:

Copilot

Quote of the Day:

Comic of the Day:


Wrong Hands | Cartoons by John Atkinson. ©John Atkinson, Wrong Hands

Inspirobot Always Controversial, Occasionally Inspirational Quote of the Day:

In case you missed yesterday’s Short, Shortly Reigning Spark! by @jimender2, you can catch it here.

What I am listening to today:

33 Spice ups

First.
Seeing the Ramones track* on there, I saw CJ Ramone the other week at Download playing bass for Spike and the Gimme Gimmes. He looks a little different now, but 30 years will do that to someone:

* I’ve put in another link for it as it doesn’t want to show me that version of the video in the UK.

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Great Spark!

1960 – To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is first published, in the United States.

To think, To Kill a Mockingbird was the only novel that Harper Lee ever wrote, and it sold over 40 million copies. Did she really need to write anymore novels after that? Talk about nailing it on the first try, and no, Go Set a Watchman doesn’t count since it was a first draft of To Kill a Mockingbird.

2015 – Satoru Iwata, Japanese game programmer and businessman (born 1959)

I have a lot of respect for Satoru Iwata. Unlike a lot of CEOs who’d rather make staff redundant when sales of products fall, Satoru Iwata voluntarily cut his salary in half not once, but twice when the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U weren’t doing so well. No one lost their jobs because of this, and it shows that he cared for his staff. If that’s not commendable, I don’t know what is.

15 Spice ups

Was it a commercial?

In honor of the best Superman.

@jameswalker20 @gurugabe1 @Panda-Marie @chrisdavis8

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Ah. To be young and stupid. We had a Skylab party. Took a keg of beer, “borrowed” a bench, and put them both up in a tree!. Campus police came by and asked us what we were doing. “Having a Skylab reentry party”. Police shrugged and walked off.

12 Spice ups

Now we have the satellite graveyard.

It would have been the end of the line for Napoleon if he made it that far.

The angle and position of Skylab make it look like a power drill to me.

@LegBone

Random Friday song

@Panda-Marie @chrisdavies4 @gurugabe1 @HulkSmash @shreddie

14 Spice ups

There’s another phrase that starts with Young and Dumb.

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1972 – The first game of the World Chess Championship 1972 between challenger Bobby Fischer and defending champion Boris Spassky starts

tobey-maguire-that-was-today

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Hey Ramones, I like this version better. With Steve Urkel

World Population Day, currently at 8,234,012.520

National Cheer Up The Lonely Day. To cheer you up, I have this quote.

You don’t frighten us, you English pig dog. Go and boil your bottom, sons of a silly person. I don’t want to talk to you no more. You empty-headed food trough whopper. I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelled of elderberries. Now, go away or I shall taunt you a second time.

@atruex @georgeSVFC @yellowshirtcc @ich-ni-san @jemjules @hulksmash @panda-marie @chrisdavis8 @jameswalker20 @machomanrandall @DailyLlama @Nerf_Herder

1965: Scott Shriner enters the world. The bassist serves in the Marine Corps. before joining Weezer in ’01.
1969: Can you hear me, Major Tom? David Bowie releases “Space Oddity.” It’s timed to coincide with the first moon landing.

15 Spice ups

Not the US Marines but still pretty impressive:

@Panda-Marie @jameswalker20 @HulkSmash

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I promise, I had nothing to do with it!!

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An excuse to post one of my favourite pieces of music:

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You got us Detroit from Canada? And they said Seward’s Folly was a bad purchase - this sir, I say is worse!

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Not I, this was a different Jay, I swear!!

8 Spice ups

It then took 43 years and 6 more weeks for Bryan Allen flying the Gossamer Condor to win the first Kremer Prize by flying a one mile figure 8 at more than 10’ off the ground, which would be in a forthcoming Spark if August 23 wasn’t a Saturday this year

8 Spice ups

Excellent spark, so many things to follow up on and learn more. The Fort Detroit piece especially led me down a fun rabbits hole.

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e76677ae8f42362c41922b7d32a8d76c

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Every Marine I’ve known attributes this 1783 - 1798 gap to either extended leave or temporary assignment to civilian duties but definitely NOT that there were no Marines.

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Maybe that is when crayons were invented? :grin:

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…or the first 50 piece jigsaw puzzles? :grin:

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