The Oxford Dictionary debuts, Chief Justice John Jay is named the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, the first nuclear explosion is shown on TV, and the Columbia space shuttle explodes in This Day in History video. The date is February 1st. The crew of Rick Husband, William McCool, Michael Anderson, Kalpana Chawla, and David Brown are lost.
Samuel Sandoval, one of the last original Navajo Code Talkers, recalls enlisting in the Marines at 18 to help create an unbreakable code. Using their sacred, unwritten language, he and his brothers-in-arms forged a secret weapon that never fell to the enemy.