Alexei Leonov, connected by a 16-foot tether, leaves the Voskhod 2 capsule in orbit above Earth. Lasting 12 minutes and 9 seconds, it is the first "spacewalk."
The Soviet Union had most of the major spaceflight milestones, until the 1st manned Moon landing. Leonov's spacewalk beat the 1st American one, by 77 days: Ed White spent 36 minutes outside Gemini 4 on June 3, 1965.
Leonov, a 31-year-old native of Listvyanka, in Siberia, was awarded his country's highest honor, the medal named "Hero of the Soviet Union." When the Zond program began, with the idea of putting a Soviet man on the Moon, Leonov was chosen to be the 1st.
But technical issues led to delays, and the U.S. landed 2 missions on the Moon before the first unmanned Zond mission was launched in 1970. The Soviets never did have a manned launch, and they gave up on having one.
Leonov later went out of his way to expose conspiracy theorists who said the American Moon landing was faked, by pointing out that the Soviets were following the Apollo 11 mission with their satellites, and cheered when Neil Armstrong did the 1st Moonwalk. Yes, it was a victory for America. But it was also a victory for all of humanity.
Leonov did get a 2nd chance to be a hero, commanding the Soviet side of the Apollo/Soyuz mission in 1975, the 1st joint U.S.-Russian space effort. That gained him a 2nd Hero of the Soviet Union medal. He rose to the rank of Major General in the Soviet Air Force, and lived until 2019, age 85.
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On the same day, Eugene Sesky, a truck driver taking bananas from Port Newark, New Jersey to the A&P supermarket terminal in Scranton, Pennsylvania, crashes just a couple of miles short of his destination, on Moosic Street at Irving Avenue.
A few weeks later, a Greyhound bus, starting in Ithaca, New York and running to New York City, went up that hill, in the opposite direction, as Moosic Street becomes U.S. Route 307. One of the passengers was a 22-year-old New Yorker and folksinger named Harry Chapin, returning home from a gig at Ithaca's Cornell University.
The old man sitting next to him told him about the tragedy. Harry turned it into the song "Thirty Thousand Pounds of Bananas," and put in on his 1974 album Verities and Balderdash, which also includes his best-known song, "Cat's In the Cradle."
Harry Chapin.
I couldn't find a photograph of Eugene Sesky,
only of his grave, which seemed inappropriate to post.
Having heard the story secondhand, at best, Harry got a lot of details wrong as he wrote the song. Sesky was 32, a U.S. Army veteran, and an experienced driver for the Fred Carpentier truck line, so he wasn't "a young driver, just out on his second job." And when he saw that his brakes weren't working, instead of just sitting there in the cab, saying, "God, make it a dream!" he got out on the running board, and waved to the oncoming cars to get out of the way. He died a hero: Although 16 people, most of them in cars, were hurt, Sesky was the only one who died. He also hadn't "lost his head, not to mention an arm or two, before he stopped."
And, of course, Harry would also be killed in a motor vehicle crash, at an age not much older than Sesky, and was no hero in the process: His license was already suspended. Harry would become a hero in raising a great deal of money for hunger relief. But in writing a song involving food, he did no one any favors, least of all the man who was both victim and hero.
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In 2023, I saw a hockey game at the Prudential Center in Newark, with my niece, Rachel, between my team, the home team, the New Jersey Devils, and her team, the Philadelphia Flyers. I would have taken a sloppy win. Instead, the Devils won the game, 7-0, getting goals by 7 different players.
I felt bad for Rachel. But I wondered about the historical nature of the achievement: Had that ever been done before? As it turned out, it was not all that close to the record.
On the night of March 18, 1965, the Detroit Red Wings beat the Boston Bruins, 10-3 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit, getting goals from 10 different players.
Gordie Howe, already the NHL's all-time leading goalscorer, scored at 2:05 of the 1st period. Hubert "Pit" Martin scored at 3:58. Val Fonteyne scored at 10:39. Floyd Smith scored at 12:17. Gary Bergman scored just 40 seconds later. Finally, Reggie Fleming got the Bruins on the board at 17:27, and the 1st period ended 5-1.
Ron Murphy made it 6-1 at 3:08 of the 2nd period. Ron Schock got one back for the Bruins at 8:46. Alex Delvecchio scored at 14:19, to make it 7-2. In the 3rd period, Tommy Williams scored for Boston at 2:48, but 7-3 was as close as they would get. Doug Barkley scored at 7:40, Ted Lindsay at 13:38, and Norm Ullman at 14:47.
Assists: Ullman 4, Howe 3; 2 each for Delvecchio, Barkley and Bruce MacGregor; and 1 each for Marcel Pronovost, Bill Gadsby, Paul Henderson and Albert Langlois. Howe, Delvecchio, Lindsay, Ullman, Pronovost and Gadsby would be elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame.
Jack Norris, no relation to the Norris family that owned the Wings, allowed all 10 Detroit goals. Roger Crozier was the winning goalie.
As the final score might suggest, the Wings finished 1st overall in the NHL, winning the Prince of Wales Trophy under the format then in place; while the Bruins finished 6th and last, missing the Stanley Cup Playoffs. But the Wings were eliminated from the Playoffs in the Semifinals by the Chicago Black Hawks, who then lost the Finals to the Montreal Canadiens.
The feat of 10 goals by 10 different players has been done once since, by the 1992 Calgary Flames.
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