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Television

Pathfinders To Mars: Lichens!

Pathfinders To MarsBritish broadcaster ABC airs the fourth episode of Pathfinders To Mars, a follow-up series to Pathfinders In Space, produced by future Doctor Who creator Sydney Newman. George Colouris and Gerald Flood (City Beneath The Sea) star; the script is written by Malcolm Hulke (Doctor Who) and Eric Paice (Star Maidens). Though the original master tape of this episode was later wiped for reuse, film recordings of all six episodes would be recovered and released on DVD in the 21st century.

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Television

The Avengers: Hot Snow

The AvengersThe first episode of Sydney Newman’s spy series The Avengers, starring Ian Hendry and Patrick Macnee, airs on UK broadcaster ABC. Devised as a serious drama with Hendry in the lead and Macnee, as mysterious Mr. Steed, as his sidekick, the first season has a radically different feel from the more light-hearted spy-fi tone of later seasons of which Macnee will be the star. This episode will go missing from the archives after its first broadcast, but the first act will later be recovered. This and many other missing episodes will also be recreated in audio form in the 21st century by Big Finish Productions.

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Television

Pathfinders To Mars: Zero Hour On The Red Planet

Pathfinders To MarsBritish broadcaster ABC airs the fifth episode of Pathfinders To Mars, a follow-up series to Pathfinders In Space, produced by future Doctor Who creator Sydney Newman. George Colouris and Gerald Flood (City Beneath The Sea) star; the script is written by Malcolm Hulke (Doctor Who) and Eric Paice (Star Maidens). Though the original master tape of this episode was later wiped for reuse, film recordings of all six episodes would be recovered and released on DVD in the 21st century.

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Television

Pathfinders To Mars: Falling Into The Sun

Pathfinders To MarsBritish broadcaster ABC airs the sixth episode of Pathfinders To Mars, a follow-up series to Pathfinders In Space, produced by future Doctor Who creator Sydney Newman. George Colouris and Gerald Flood (City Beneath The Sea) star; the script is written by Malcolm Hulke (Doctor Who) and Eric Paice (Star Maidens). Though the original master tape of this episode was later wiped for reuse, film recordings of all six episodes would be recovered and released on DVD in the 21st century. This concludes the Pathfinders To Mars storyline; a further (and final) follow-up, Pathfinders To Venus, will premiere in March.

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Television

One Step Beyond: The Sacred Mushroom

One Step BeyondABC airs the 79th episode of the supernatural anthology series One Step Beyond, hosted and directed by John Newland. Due to the episode’s focus on the mind-altering properties of mushrooms, this episode is excised from the running order of the show’s later syndicated reruns, despite host Newland claiming that it was the most poupular episode of the entire series.

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Crewed Spaceflight Mercury

Mercury 2: canned Ham

HamThe first living creature to reach space aboard an American rocket is Ham, a chimpanzee wired with electrodes and sensors to determine the effects of space travel on a higher primate whose body might react similarly to that of a human being. NASA sends Ham on the sixteen-minute suborbital Mercury 2 flight, ending in a splashdown in the Atlantic. Both Ham and his vehicle survive the flight despite numerous equipment glitches in both the Redstone rocket and the Mercury capsule itself (which actually blasts away from the Redstone via its launch abort system), which loses cabin pressure (fortunately, Ham has his own spacesuit to protect him) and then puts its primate pilot through a punishing 17G reentry. For his pioneering feat of spaceflight, Ham receives an apple, an orange, and paid retirement to the National Zoo.

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Television

The Avengers: Girl On The Trapeze

The AvengersThe sixth episode of Sydney Newman’s spy series The Avengers, starring Ian Hendry and Patrick Macnee, airs on UK broadcaster ABC. Written by Dennis Spooner (Doctor Who) and featuring Kenny Baker (Star Wars) in an uncredited role, this is one of only three first season episodes of The Avengers that still exists in its entirety.

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Uncrewed Spaceflight Venera

Venera 1

Venera 1The Soviet Union launches Venera 1, the first interplanetary space probe. Bound for Venus, Venera 1 returns measurements and observations taken during its three-month flight, but loses contact with ground controllers just as it makes its closest approach to Venus at a distance of 62,000 miles from the planet. It falls into an orbit around the sun after falling silent.