On This Day: Challenger explodes

Octorara was cancelled because of a snow storm On This Day 29 years ago. To be honest I do not recall the storm. That was my junior year and I remember we had off often that January. This day stood out thou because I was in the living room. I think my sister was in there with me. Mom was in the kitchen starting lunch and Daddy was at work. We were waiting to watch the Challenger take off. It was the first time a civilian would be included.

The civilian was teacher Christa McAuliffe from one of the New England states. There was a lot of hype about this flight because of her. Normally to be honest, I would not have wasted time watching a shuttle take off but it shortly before lunch, 11:38 am ET when the shuttle took off.

And then in just a little over a minute – 73 seconds to be exact – the Challenger exploded. There was an odd looking plume of smoke and fire. It was horrific and yet hard to turn away from.

The year, by the way, was 1986.

Photo: Wikipedia

On This Day is a prompt I started this month to further explore historical events.

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