Wednesday · November 11, 2026
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American history, reported as it happened
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19931776 Club

Endeavour lifts off with a broken retrieval system and a satellite to catch

Commander Grabe and five crewmates carry the first Spacehab module aloft; EURECA has been drifting in low Earth orbit, uncollected, for eleven months.

After eleven months adrift in low Earth orbit, a European science satellite needed a ride home — and the electrical system meant to help retrieve it was broken before launch. Space Shuttle Endeavour lifted off from Kennedy Space Center on June 21, 1993, carrying Commander Ronald Grabe, five crewmates, and the first-ever Spacehab module. Four days later, Mission Specialists David Low and Peter Wiseman stepped outside for a 5-hour, 50-minute spacewalk to manually secure EURECA's antennas after a waived flight rule left them unlatched. Endeavour returned to Earth with fifteen experiments' worth of microgravity data and a satellite that would end up on display in a Swiss museum…

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More from June 21
1768

Otis stands before the General Court and charges King and Parliament with tyranny

The Boston lawyer who called taxation without representation unlawful delivers his sharpest attack yet; word is already moving toward London.
1788

New Hampshire ratifies; the Constitution crosses the nine-state threshold

Eight states had approved it and it meant nothing; the Granite State's vote today makes the Philadelphia document the law of a real nation.
1942

Japanese submarine shells Fort Stevens; Doney orders blackout, holds his guns

Commander Tagami surfaces I-25 at the Columbia River mouth after dark, fires seventeen rounds, and slips away undamaged, leaving cut telephone lines on the Oregon coast.
20041776 Club
SpaceShipOne, built by Burt Rutan for roughly $25 million of Paul Allen's money, breaks a 43-year government monopoly on crewed spaceflight.
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2020

Biden accepts the nomination alone in a Delaware ballroom, no crowd, no roar

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1994

Thirty-three years after his death, the Air Force finally makes Eugene Bullard an officer

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2012

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