16th June - On this Day
What does the 16th June have to offer, well on this day...
On this day in 1960, Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho premiered, the film led the way for slasher films and pushed the horror format into another direction.
In 1963 Valentina Tereshkova, born on a collective farm near Yaroslavl, USSR, became the first woman in space when her spacecraft, Vostok 6, took off from the Tyuratam launch site. She manually controlled Vostok 6 during the 70.8-hour flight through 48 orbits of Earth and landed back on Earth by parachute.
The world's first roller coaster opened on this day in 1884 at Coney Island, Brooklyn, NY. Built and later patented by LaMarcus Thompson, the "Gravity Pleasure Switchback Railway" boasted two parallel 600-foot tracks that descended from 50 feet. The cars travelled at six miles per hour.
