On this day in 1970, Apollo 13 prepares for its trip into space. Just two days into its mission, the spacecraft would unfortunately be struck by catastrophe. An oxygen tank would explode, leaving three astronauts in a crippled spaceship about 200,000 miles from Earth.   How would they survive? For days, the country waited in suspense. Congress passed resolutions asking Americans to pray.   The flight began uneventfully enough. Apollo 13 had run into a few pre-flight hiccups,

On this day in 1924, a future U.S. Air Force test pilot is born. Captain Milburn “Mel” Apt is best known for being the first to fly faster than Mach 3. Sadly, his Bell X-2 supersonic aircraft went into a spin mere seconds later. The intrepid pilot was unable to eject in time. “These are powerful rocket planes,” Air Force Magazine described, “each icebox white, small, and more powerful than any engine man has ever built. They are rapier-nosed guided missiles, guided by men who

On this day in 1782, a small American sloop faces off against HMS General Monk . The sloop’s captain was just 22 years old. He was outgunned and outmanned.   Naturally, he outwitted—then defeated—the British in a mere 30 minutes.   “This action has been justly deemed one of the most brilliant that ever occurred under the American flag,” historian James Fenimore Cooper concludes. “It was fought in the presence of a vastly superior force . . . [the ship taken was] superior to h

On this day in 2021, a hero passes away. Charles H. Coolidge had endured a four-day ordeal during World War II. It earned him the Medal of Honor, although he then barely even knew what the Medal was! He’d heard of it only because Sergeant Alvin York had grown up about 100 miles away from his hometown in Tennessee.   Coolidge’s heroism came as Allied forces worked their way across France late in the war. On October 24, 1944, he was with his platoon of machine-gunners. They’d b