Good News in History September 26

41 years ago today, the lives of two Soviet cosmonauts, Gennady Strekalov and Vladimir Titov, were saved in the only use of an emergency shuttle eject system in the history of manned spaceflight. Their Mission Soyuz-U was on the launch pad when mission control detected a serious fuel leak in the rockets. A mere 20 seconds before the rockets exploded and obliterated the launch infrastructure beyond repair, Strekalov and Titov were launched 4.5 miles from the site at Mach 10 in their space shuttle, but miraculously suffered no serious injuries. READ about what they accomplished thanks to their ‘second birthday’… (1983)

The two cosmonauts celebrated September 26th as their “second birthday” every year afterward. Strekalaov continued working as a Russian cosmonaut, spending more than 150 days in space.

In 1995, after formally retiring as an astronaut, Strekalov joined the Shuttle-Mir Program, but soon returned to flight status. On March 14th, 1995, he flew on Soyuz TM-21 to the Mir space station, accompanied by Vladimir Dezhurov and American astronaut Norman Thagard. The mission, designated EO-18, was the first non-US launch to carry an American into space.

Strekalov departed Mir on the US Space Shuttle Atlantis, after 115 days during which he broke rank with mission control after they ordered an unplanned space walk to repair a solar array, something which Strekalov determined was too dangerous.

Titov also continued flying after his second birthday, and on October 28th, 1992, NASA announced that an experienced cosmonaut would fly aboard the STS-60 Space Shuttle mission. Titov was one of two candidates named by the Russian Space Agency for mission specialist training at the Johnson Space Center. He was assigned as backup mission specialist for Sergei Krikalev, who flew on STS-60, the first joint U.S./Russian Space Shuttle Mission. In September 1993, Titov was selected to fly on STS-63 with Krikalev training as his backup.

From February 2nd to 11th, 1995, Titov was a mission specialist aboard Space Shuttle Discovery, on STS-63, the first flight of the new joint Russian-American Space Program. Mission highlights included the rendezvous with the Russian Space Station Mir, operation of Spacehab, and the deployment and retrieval of Spartan 204.

MORE Good News on this Day:

• Sir Francis Drake docked his ship in Plymouth, England after circumnavigating the globe (1580)
• Pink Floyd performed their very first US concert at the Fillmore in San Francisco, featuring founding members—Nick Mason, Syd Barrett, Roger Waters, and Richard Wright, after starting the group in college two years earlier (1967)
• The Brady Bunch first aired on American television, a sitcom about a large blended family with six children from two previous marriages (1969)
• Nolan Ryan set a Major League Baseball record by pitching his fifth no-hitter (1981)
• The UK handed over Hong Kong to China after 150 years (1984)
• International weapons inspectors certified the Irish Republican Army‘s full disarmament (2005)

55 years ago today, Abbey Road the Beatles’ final album, was released in the United Kingdom, and on October 1st in the United States, reaching number one in both countries. Although it was an immediate commercial success, it received mixed reviews. Some critics found its music inauthentic and criticized the production’s artificial effects. By contrast, critics today view the album as one of the Beatles’ best and rank it as one of the greatest albums of all time. George Harrison’s two songs on the album, “Something” and “Here Comes the Sun”, have been regarded as some of the best he wrote for the group.

Abbey Road made use of a modernized studio, including an eight-track recorder and a solid-state transistor mixing desk. During production, Alan Parsons worked as an assistant engineer on the album. He later went on to engineer Pink Floyd’s landmark album The Dark Side of the Moon and produce many popular albums himself with the Alan Parsons Project. John Kurlander also assisted on many of the sessions, and went on to become a successful engineer and producer, most noteworthy for his success on the scores for The Lord of the Rings film trilogy.

Among the album’s tracks are some of the widest-sampled and best-known Beatles songs. Here Comes the Sun was written by Harrison in Eric Clapton’s garden in Surrey during a break from stressful band business meetings, while Octopus’s Garden was written and sung by Ringo Starr after a trip to Sardinia.

Come Together was an expansion of a song John Lennon originally wrote for Timothy “The Pope of Dope” Leary’s California gubernatorial campaign against Ronald Reagan. HEAR them revel in the memories in this mini-doc… (1969)

17 years ago, a charitable foundation set up by Shakira donated $40 million to help victims of natural disasters. The money was pledged toward repairing damage caused by an earthquake in Peru and a hurricane in Nicaragua.

A further $5 million from the Colombian singer and songwriter known as the “Queen of Latin Music,” was to be spent on health and education in four Latin American countries, according to ThisDayinMusic.com. (2007)

And, on this day in 1983, the Soviet Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov single-handedly averted a worldwide nuclear war when he chose to believe his intuition instead of the computer screen—even when it indicated that the U.S. had launched a nuclear missile attack against the Soviet Union.

The country was already on high alert, expecting retaliation for its downing of a Korean Air Boeing 747. The Lieutenant Colonel had no confirmation and only minutes to decide his course of action. (Read the Full Story)

MORE: The Idea That Turned Russian Warheads Into American Electricity

And, on this day in 1968, the Oscar award-winning musical drama Oliver! premiered in movie theaters. Based on the Charles Dickens novel Oliver Twist, the film includes such memorable musical numbers by Lionel Bart as “Food, Glorious Food”, “Consider Yourself”, “I’d do Anything”, and “You’ve Got to Pick a Pocket or Two”. Oliver! was nominated for eleven Academy Awards and won six, including Best Picture, Best Director for Carol Reed, and an Honorary Award for choreographer Onna White. WATCH the scene where the Artful Dodger (Jack Wild) first meets Oliver (Mark Lester) and launches the massive number, Consider Yourself…

Also, Happy 79th Birthday to singer-songwriter Bryan Ferry whose “elegant, seductive croon” and Mod stylings influenced a generation of glam art rock in the 70s. He was the lead singer and songwriter for Roxy Music, achieving three No.1 albums and 10 singles that reached the top 10 in the UK, including, Street Life, Love Is the Drug, Dance Away, Angel Eyes, Jealous Guy, Avalon, and More Than This.

Ferry’s hits as a solo artist include Slave to Love and Don’t Stop the Dance and the UK No.1 album Boys and Girls in 1985. When his sales as a solo artist and as a member of Roxy Music are combined, Ferry has sold over 30 million albums worldwide.

Bryan Ferry produced a 2007 LP of Bob Dylan songs called Dylanesque, and in 2019, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Roxy Music. WATCH a great 2019 CBS retrospective… (1945)

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