Sunday · November 15, 2026
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American history, reported as it happened
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19931776 Club

Endeavour lifts off with a broken retrieval system and a satellite to catch

Commander Grabe and five crewmates carry the first Spacehab module aloft; EURECA has been drifting in low Earth orbit, uncollected, for eleven months.

After eleven months adrift in low Earth orbit, a European science satellite needed a ride home — and the electrical system meant to help retrieve it was broken before launch. Space Shuttle Endeavour lifted off from Kennedy Space Center on June 21, 1993, carrying Commander Ronald Grabe, five crewmates, and the first-ever Spacehab module. Four days later, Mission Specialists David Low and Peter Wiseman stepped outside for a 5-hour, 50-minute spacewalk to manually secure EURECA's antennas after a waived flight rule left them unlatched. Endeavour returned to Earth with fifteen experiments' worth of microgravity data and a satellite that would end up on display in a Swiss museum…

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More from June 21
1768

Otis stands before the General Court and charges King and Parliament with tyranny

The Boston lawyer who called taxation without representation unlawful delivers his sharpest attack yet; word is already moving toward London.
1788

New Hampshire ratifies; the Constitution crosses the nine-state threshold

Eight states had approved it and it meant nothing; the Granite State's vote today makes the Philadelphia document the law of a real nation.
1942

Japanese submarine shells Fort Stevens; Doney orders blackout, holds his guns

Commander Tagami surfaces I-25 at the Columbia River mouth after dark, fires seventeen rounds, and slips away undamaged, leaving cut telephone lines on the Oregon coast.
20041776 Club
SpaceShipOne, built by Burt Rutan for roughly $25 million of Paul Allen's money, breaks a 43-year government monopoly on crewed spaceflight.
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More from Modern America
2000

A small boat pulls alongside the USS Cole; the blast kills 17 sailors in line for lunch

Two suicide bombers detonate explosives against the destroyer's hull while it refuels in Aden harbor.
1997

A Titan IVB rises from Cape Canaveral, carrying Cassini toward Saturn

The seven-year voyage begins with 72 pounds of plutonium and a DVD of 616,400 signatures tucked aboard.
2001

Apple shows a white box the size of a deck of cards: 1,000 songs in your pocket

Steve Jobs introduces a 6.5-ounce music player built around a 5 GB hard drive hidden inside a Cupertino auditorium.
2007

Discovery lifts off with Pamela Melroy in command, only the second woman to lead a shuttle crew

The mission carries a new station module and a piece of ice too small, NASA says, to worry about.
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