In response to Sputnik, the US Congress passed the National Aeronautics and Space Act in July 1958, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration began operations on 1 October 1958. It absorbed the earlier research agency NACA, together with several military rocket programmes. Its first projects were Mercury, to put an American in orbit, and robotic probes to the Moon. Over the following decade NASA grew to employ some 400,000 people, and in 1969 it landed the first humans on the Moon.
Before and after
- 29 August 1958Birth of Michael Jackson
- 30 August 1958Birth of Anna Politkovskaya
- from 1 September 1958 to 1 June 1976Cod Wars
- 22 September 1958Birth of Andrea Bocelli
- 1 October 1958NASA is founded
- 8 October 1958Birth of Ursula von der Leyen
- 9 October 1958Death of Pius XII
- 23 December 1958Construction of Tokyo Tower
- 1959Invention of Floyd–Warshall algorithm
More in Exploration & discovery
- from 4 October 1957 to 1 July 1975Space race
- 23 January 1960Piccard and Walsh reach the bottom of the Challenger Deep
- 24 December 1968Apollo 8 orbits the Moon and photographs Earthrise
- 14 December 1972Apollo 17: the last humans leave the Moon
- 14 July 2015New Horizons flies by Pluto
- 19 April 2021Ingenuity makes the first powered flight on another planet
The era
This moment belongs to the Contemporary world (1945 CE to today), the world since 1945. You can also browse everything in the 20th century.