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Flashback calendar

Apollo 10 returns to Earth

Apollo 10 was the fourth manned mission in the US Apollo space program, and the second to orbit the Moon. Splashdown occurred in the Pacific Ocean at 16:52:23 UTC, about 400 nautical miles east of American Samoa. Apollo 10 set the record for the highest speed attained by a manned vehicle: 39,897 km/h during the return from the Moon.

The first U.S. nuclear power plant opens

Shippingport Atomic Power Station was the first full-scale atomic electric power plant devoted exclusively to peacetime uses. It was located near the present-day Beaver Valley Nuclear Generating Station on the Ohio River in Beaver County, Pennsylvania. The power plant worked until October 1982. The first electrical power was produced on December 18, 1957.

Khufu's Boat is discovered

Coptic-Egyptian archaeologist Kamal el-Mallakh discovered a boat sealed into a pit at the foot of the Great Pyramid in the Giza pyramid complex. The boat was buried around 2500 BC. It was a part of the extensive grave goods for pharaoh Khufu (King Cheops). They were intended for use in the afterlife.

Last Ford Model T is rolling off the assembly line

Production of the first affordable automobile ended after 19 years. Around 15 million Model T (also known as the Tin Lizzie, Leaping Lena, or flivver) vehicles had been built. Henry Ford with his son Edsel, then president of the Ford Motor Company, drove the last car to the Dearborn Engineering Laboratory.

English monk Bede the Venerable dies

His writings established the use of BC and AD with dates. Bede applied his knowledge of astronomy for calculating the correct date for Easter and found an error in the Julian calendar. Bede also described how the seasonal motion of the Sun and Moon influences the changes of the tides. He made a new calculation of the age of the world since the creation as well.

Anniversaries of the (in)famous