On this day · archive
The Moon gets a set of wheels
Apollo 15 left Earth carrying a new idea of lunar distance. With the first Lunar Roving Vehicle aboard, the mission prepared to turn the Moon from a landing place into terrain that astronauts could cross.
8
events in todayish file
1971
Apollo 15 launches on the first J-Mission, carrying the first Lunar Roving Vehicle.
The lunar surface was about to become less a landing site than a landscape that astronauts could cross.
Apollo 15 launched as the first Apollo J-Mission and the first to carry a Lunar Roving Vehicle. The hardware changed the practical geometry of lunar exploration: astronauts would no longer be limited to the ground close to the lander.
A rover turns distance into a working resource. Equipment can travel farther, observations can cover more terrain, and the Moon begins to read not as one dramatic destination but as a place with routes.
The date also carries two other launches, Syncom 2 and Explorer 4. Together they make July 26 a compact history of reach: outward from Earth, around it, and across another world.
The full record
8 entries from the day’s archive, filed year by year with a note on what each one leaves behind.
The Sagamihara stabbings occur in Kanagawa Prefecture in Japan. Nineteen people are killed.
The attack placed disabled victims and the violence directed at them at the center of public memory.
Violence
Hillary Clinton becomes the first female nominee for president of the United States by a major political party at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.
Clinton’s nomination marked a first for women in major-party U.S. presidential politics.
Politics
A Royal Moroccan Air Force Lockheed C-130 Hercules crashes near Guelmim Airport in Guelmim, Morocco. All 80 people on board are killed.
The crash killed all 80 people aboard a military transport flight near Guelmim.
Disaster
The militant Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram attacks a police station in Bauchi, leading to reprisals by the Nigeria Police Force and four days of violence across multiple cities.
The Bauchi attack opened four days of violence across several Nigerian cities.
Violence
Kargil conflict officially comes to an end. The Indian Army announces the complete eviction of Pakistani intruders.
An army announcement moved the conflict from active fighting into official remembrance and aftermath.
Conflict
Apollo program: Launch of Apollo 15 on the first Apollo "J-Mission", and first use of a Lunar Roving Vehicle.
Apollo 15 expanded the working range of astronauts on the lunar surface.
Space
Syncom 2, the world's first geosynchronous satellite, is launched from Cape Canaveral on a Delta B booster.
Syncom 2 became the first satellite to achieve a geosynchronous orbit.
Space
Explorer program: Explorer 4 is launched.
The launch belongs to the early period when each new satellite expanded the practical reach of the Explorer program.
Space