NASA Founded: America Rallies Against Sputnik
President Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act into law on July 29, 1958, pulling US space efforts out of exclusive military control to establish NASA. This legislative shift directly enabled the peaceful scientific cooperation and technological leadership that eventually allowed humans to walk on the Moon.
July 29, 1958
68 years ago
Key Figures & Places
What Else Happened on July 29
Nebuchadnezzar II’s forces breached the walls of Jerusalem, systematically dismantling the First Temple and deporting the city’s elite to Babylon. This destruct…
The Praetorian Guard broke into the palace and found two emperors arguing. Pupienus and Balbinus had ruled Rome together for 99 days, spending most of it feudin…
Twelve years old and they handed him a collapsing kingdom. K'inich Janaab Pakal became ajaw of Palenque on July 29, 615, after enemies had sacked the city and k…
Twenty-two thousand residents of Thessaloniki were chained together and marched to slave markets across the Caliphate—the largest single human haul from a Byzan…
King Rudolph II and Margrave Adalbert I crush dethroned Emperor Berengar I's forces at Firenzuola, ending his bid to reclaim the Italian throne. This decisive v…
Basil II crushed the Bulgarian army at the pass of Kleidion, capturing 15,000 soldiers. By blinding ninety-nine out of every hundred men and leaving one sighted…
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