2008 – Soyuz TMA-12 launches from Baikonur Cosmodrome on a mission to the International Space Station. Aboard is Sergey Volkov, Oleg Kononenko, and South Korean Yi So-Yeon.
2002 – STS-110 is launched on an ISS assembly mission. Mission duration, 10 days, 19 hours, 43 minutes, 38 seconds The main purpose was to install the S0 Truss segment, which forms the backbone of the truss structure on the station.
1999 – Asteroid 1981 Midas Closest Approach To Earth (0.490 AU)
1998 – ESA’s Infrared Space Observatory (ISO) ended its observational phase. Astronomers had been able to use ISO for more than 28 months (instead of the planned 18 months) and, as a result, gathered a wealth of additional information about the Universe. Altogether ISO made over 26 000 observations of cosmic objects.
1997 – STS 83 Columbia lands early at KSC. Landing was originally scheduled for KSC April 19 at 7:30am EDT but the mission was cut short after 3 days, 23 hrs, due to problems with Columbia’s Fuel Cell #2.
1993 – STS-56 launched. It was Discovery’s 16th flight. The mission was launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida to perform special experiments in space.
1980 – Voyager 1‘s confirmation of the discovery of Saturn Moon Telesto.Telesto was discovered in 1980 using ground-based observations by Brad Smith, Harold Reitsema, Stephen Larson, and John Fountain.
1964 – Gemini 1 Launch (Unmanned), not recovered. Mission terminated after 3 orbits and spacecraft disintegrated 3.5 days after launch. All primary and secondary objectives achieved.
1947 -The largest sunspot ever observed was photographed. It covered 6% of the Sun’s visible disk.