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19611776 Club

Grissom reaches space; his capsule sinks under him at splashdown

The hatch blows early, and Liberty Bell 7 goes to the bottom while a Navy helicopter fights to keep Grissom afloat.

Ten weeks after Alan Shepard's suborbital flight, NASA needed to know the first success wasn't luck. On July 21, 1961, Gus Grissom rode Mercury-Redstone 4 to more than 102 nautical miles up and 262 nautical miles downrange, a fifteen-minute arc that made him the second American in space. Then, bobbing in the Atlantic, the hatch cover blew off Liberty Bell 7 without warning. Water poured in and the capsule started sinking. Grissom swam clear while a helicopter crew fought to keep the flooding spacecraft from taking him down with it…

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More from July 21
1861

Green troops collide at Bull Run; the Union army breaks and runs for Washington

Spectators drove out from the capital with picnic baskets to watch; they fled home in the same traffic jam as the soldiers.
1997

Old Ironsides sails again; Cronkite takes the helm off Marblehead

The 1797 frigate moves under her own canvas for the first time in 116 years, on sails paid for through a national campaign of citizen and student donations.
1944

Marines and soldiers storm Guam's beaches, opening a three-week fight to retake it

Two and a half years after its surrender, the island is under American naval gunfire again.
19491776 Club
Twelve nations bound themselves to treat an attack on one as an attack on all.
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More from Cold War America
1958

Eisenhower buries two unknowns at Arlington; each man receives the Medal of Honor

Charette, the Navy's only active enlisted Medal of Honor holder, chose the World War II unknown; Lyle picked the Korean War soldier from four disinterred candidates.
1968

Kennedy is dead; Johnson declares a national day of mourning

Shot in the Ambassador Hotel kitchen nearly 25 hours ago, the California primary winner dies at Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles.
1964

Senate breaks the longest filibuster in its history; civil rights vote is cleared

Robert Byrd's 14-hour, 13-minute speech closes 72 days of Southern obstruction, and cloture passes 71 to 29.
1966

Warren's court rules 5–4: police must tell suspects they may stay silent before questioning begins

Ernesto Miranda's kidnapping conviction falls; he had signed a "voluntary" confession without ever being told he could refuse to speak or call a lawyer.
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