First Space Shuttle flight
1981 · Event
Columbia lifts off twenty years to the day after Gagarin — the first reusable spaceplane, flown by humans on its very first launch.
On these timelines: Spaceflight, Master, USA, Science & Technology
More from Spaceflight
- Apollo 8 orbits the Moon (1968)
- Goddard launches the first liquid-fuel rocket (1926)
- V-2: the first rocket to reach space (1942)
- Apollo 17: the last Moon landing (1972)
- Tsiolkovsky's rocket equation (1903)
- First spacewalk (1965)
- Mir space station (1986)
- Shenzhou 5: China's first astronaut (2003)
Around 1981
- Chernobyl disaster (1986)
- Dissolution of the Soviet Union (1991)
- Iranian Revolution (1978)
- Yugoslav Wars (1991)
- Yom Kippur War (1973)
- Watergate scandal (1972)
- Gulf War (1990)
- (Everything I Do) I Do It for You (Bryan Adams) (1991)
- Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody (1975)
- Night Fever (Bee Gees) (1978)