The 280th episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1. Katy Manning makes her first appearance as the Doctor’s new companion, Jo Grant. Richard Franklin joins the cast as new UNIT regular Captain Mike Yates, and the Master makes his first appearance in the series, as played by Roger Delgado. Michael Wisher guest stars.
This timeline entry leads to an entry covering this entire Doctor Who serial; there are plans to write new episodic entries in the future. You can support this effort!
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The 14th episode of Gerry Anderson’s live-action UFO series airs on ITV, starring Edward Bishop and Michael Billington. Wanda Ventham and Steven Berkoff guest star.
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ABC airs the 15th and final episode of the modern-day science fiction series The Immortal, starring Christopher George. Michael Strong and James B. Sikking guest star.
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After nearly a year of examining the problems that nearly doomed the crew of Apollo 13, the third lunar landing is achieved by the crew of 
A simple accidental tape swap at the Emergency Broadcast System‘s point of origination at NORAD replaces a routine Saturday morning EBS test with an actual emergency message involving a national emergency and an imminent message from the White House. In accordance with FCC rules, numerous radio and television stations across the country interrupt their programming in anticipation of news of a national emergency that isn’t actually happening. The situation is corrected within an hour, though questions about the effectiveness of the EBS linger at the local and national levels.
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Potential contractors for NASA’s upcoming Space Shuttle offer specs based on their final design studies, which still assume that the shuttle’s giant booster will be a manned, winged vehicle in its own right that will return to a runway on Earth after its fuel is used up. One thing that both studies suggest, however, is an aluminum airframe which requires a shift away from the ablative metallic heat shields of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs. A system of carbon-reinforced “shingles” is suggested as an alternative, and is approved by NASA, though developing the technology to create, install and maintain these tiles delays the first Shuttle launch into the 1980s, and the tiles are still prone to damage during both launch and re-entry – a weakness that will eventually seal the end of the Space Shuttle era.
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Carole King’s career-making album 
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Salyut 1, the first orbiting space station in history is launched, unmanned, by the Soviet Union. With Salyut 1, the Soviet space program intends to vault ahead of the United States in a new space discipline (namely long stays in space and the study of human endurance in a zero-G environment), having lost the moon race. The first Salyut station will orbit Earth for less than a year.
BBC2 airs the 38th episode of science fiction anthology series Out Of The Unknown. Written by former Doctor Who producer John Wiles, the story stars Peter Copley and Maurice Roeves (The Nightmare Man). This episode, opening the series’ fourth and final season, no longer exists in the BBC’s archives.