2009: NASA launches the Ares I-X test vehicle, the first and only test launch of the scuttled Constellation Program.
2006: Continental Airlines Flight 1883, a Boeing 757-200, mistakenly lands on Taxiway Z at Newark Liberty International Airport rather than Runway 29. No harm is done, but both the captain and first officer would be fired.
1998: An Air China pilot upset about pay and working conditions, hijacks his own flight. The man diverts the Boeing 737 to Taiwan while operating a flight from Beijing to Kunming. He and his wife, who is also on board, are both arrested.
1982: Air France operates its final Boeing 707 service, on a flight from Tunis to Paris.
1974: The spacecraft Luna 23 is launched by the Soviet Union on the world’s first mission to collect samples from the Moon and return them to earth. Technical problems, however, prevent the collection.
1972: The Airbus A300, the world’s first twin-engined, widebody airliner, completes its first test flight.
1971: The United Kingdom launches its first satellite, Prospero, atop a Black Arrow rocket.
1962: Nikita Kruschev orders the removal of Soviet missiles from Cuba, ending the Cuban Missile Crisis.
