1981:Astronauts John Young and Robert Crippen are aboard Columbia, the first NASA space shuttle, when it blasts off from Cape Canaveral, Fla. on its in inaugural flight, beginning a 54.5-hour orbital mission. Exactly 20 years earlier, on April 12, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space, completing a single orbit around the Earth in his Vostok 1 capsule before safely returning in less than two hours.
1861: Confederate troops under Gen. P.T. Beauregard fire the opening shots of the Civil War, bombarding the Union-held Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, S.C. Two days later, President Abraham Lincoln issues a proclamation calling for volunteers to defend the Union.
1955: After several years of clinical trials, Jonas Salk’s vaccine against polio, a devastating disease causing paralysis, is declared to be safe and effective.
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