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The USAF retires the last F-117 Nighthawk stealth attack aircraft

The Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk is an American single-seat, twin-engine stealth attack aircraft that was developed by Lockheed's secretive Skunk Works division and operated by the United States Air Force. The U.S. Air Force retired the F-117 primarily due to the fielding of the F-22 Raptor.

Intel Releases 486SX Chip

It was slower than original 486 chip called DX. It lacked the floating-point unit, which performed high-speed arithmetic, used for example in video games. It was, however, cheaper. Intel hoped to make the personal computer industry to migrate toward the more powerful 486. It was a first low-cost processor in history.

Third shuttle flight

U. S. Space Shuttle Columbia took off from Kennedy Space Centre. The main purpose of the mission was still testing the shuttle itself. A variety of minor problems were experienced during the flight. The orbiter's toilet malfunctioned. Due to flooding of the Edwards Air Force Base, Columbia had to land at the White Sands Space Harbor.

Optical fiber is first used to carry live telephone traffic

Fiber-optic communication is a method of transmitting information from one place to another by sending pulses of light through an optical fiber. General Telephone and Electronics sent the first live telephone traffic through fiber optics at a 6 Mbit/s throughput in Long Beach, California.

The first Earth Day is celebrated

Earth Day is an annual event, held to demonstrate support for environmental protection. The first Earth Day celebrations took place in two thousand colleges and universities, roughly ten thousand primary and secondary schools, and hundreds of communities across the United States.

Italian neurobiologist Rita Levi-Montalcini is born

Levi-Montalcini discovered the nerve growth factor, which stimulates and influences both the normal and abnormal growth of nerve cells in the body. Rita found it when she was looking for a chemical exuded by tumors that produced growth of nerve fibers. It was one of the first described growth factors.

American physicist Robert Oppenheimer is born

During the World War 2, Oppenheimer served as a director of the Los Alamos Laboratory. Therefore, he is often called the father of the atomic bomb. After the first bomb test at in New Mexico Oppenheimer remarked that it brought words from the Bhagavad Gita to his mind: "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."

Anniversaries of the (in)famous