Carpenter Orbits Earth: Mercury Mission Nearly Lost at Sea
Astronaut Scott Carpenter completed three orbits of Earth in the Aurora 7 capsule, becoming the second American to circle the planet during Project Mercury. A fuel miscalculation caused him to overshoot the landing zone by 250 miles, triggering a tense 40-minute search before Navy helicopters spotted his life raft in the Caribbean.
May 24, 1962
64 years ago
Key Figures & Places
What Else Happened on May 24
They caught him hunting when the messengers arrived. Henry the Fowler was setting bird traps in the Harz Mountains—literally fowling—when Saxon nobles found him…
The Fifth Crusade departed Acre for the Nile Delta, aiming to conquer Egypt and trade its territory for Jerusalem. This strategic gamble forced the Ayyubid Sult…
Magnus Ladulås received the Swedish crown at Uppsala Cathedral, solidifying his grip on power after a bitter civil war against his brothers. By formalizing his …
They dressed a ten-year-old baker's son in royal robes and called him Edward VI. Lambert Simnel had probably never held a sword before May 24, 1487, when Irish …
Lambert Simnel received a crown in Dublin as the Yorkist pretender King Edward VI, challenging the newly established Tudor dynasty. This audacious coronation fo…
The king brought the daggers himself. Erik XIV of Sweden, twenty-four years old and spiraling into paranoid delusion, personally stabbed nobleman Nils Sture in …
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