QotD

"The sorrow for the dead is the only sorrow from which we refuse to be divorced. Every other wound we seek to heal - every other affliction to forget: but this wound we consider it a duty to keep open - this affliction we cherish and brood over in solitude." -- Washington Irving (b. 1783-04-03, d. 1859-11-28)

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Today starts a dark part of the calendar for many of us, with rememberances of:

• 1967-01-27: Grissom, White and Chaffe burned to death in Apollo 1
• 1986-01-28: Space Shuttle Challenger (51-L) explodes 74 seconds after liftoff killing Scobee, Smith, McNair, Resnick, Jarvis, Onizuka and McAuliffe
• 2003-02-01: Space Shuttle Columbia (STS-107) disintegrates over Texas during re-entry killing Husband, Anderson, Brown, Chawla, Clark, McCool, Ramon

And at the end of this span we also have:

• 1959-02-03: The Day The Music Died; Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and the Big Bopper are killed in a plane crash outside Mason City, Iowa

In the middle of these grim anniversaries we also have the more positive:

• 1958-01-31: Explorer I launched. (Van Allen Belt discovered)
• 1961-01-31: "Ham" the chimpanzee soars into space aboard Mercury-Redstone 2