11th July 1962: World’s first satellite TV broadcast using Telstar

The world’s first satellite television broadcast took place on July 11th 1962 when the Telstar satellite relayed an image of a flag outside its base station at Andover Earth Station to the Pleumeur-Bodou earth station in France.

8th July 1947: Roswell Army Air Base reports ‘flying disc’ debris

Walter Haut, the public information officer of the Roswell Army Air Field, issued a press release saying that the military had recovered the remains of a ‘flying disc.’

3rd July 1979: President Jimmy Carter authorises $500,000 to aid the mujahideen in Afghanistan

By the time Soviet troops were withdrawn from Afghanistan in 1989, it had become one of the CIA’s longest and most expensive covert operations.

20th June 1945: The United States approves the transfer of Nazi rocket scientist Wernher von Braun to America

Wernher von Braun initially developed rockets for the United States Army, but was later made director of the Marshall Space Flight Center where he oversaw the design of the Saturn V rocket that launched the Apollo spacecraft to the Moon.

12th June 1987: Ronald Reagan calls on Mikhail Gorbachev to ‘Tear down this wall!’

US President Ronald Reagan made a speech in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin in which he called on the USSR’s leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, to ‘Tear down this wall!’