OpenEntrance - What’s Really Going OnWhat’s Really Going On

In 1967 Maj. Robert H. Lawrence Jr. was selected by NASA as an astronaut in the Air Force’s Manned Orbiting Laboratory Program, thus becoming the first African American astronaut. The MOL project would eventually lead to today’s International Space Station.

Major Lawrence was killed later that year in the crash of an F-104 at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

Also on this date:

1847 Dred Scott, slave, filed suit in the St. Louis Circuit Court claiming his temporary residence in a free territory should have made him a free man. He would lose this case.

1974 Mrs. Alberta Williams King, the mother of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was shot and killed.