This Week in History: Russia launches the first man-made satellite

Premium special: A glimpse into historical moments in Israeli news from this week in 'The Jerusalem Post' front covers.

By CAROLINE FRANK
This Week in History: Russia took the world by surprise when it launched the first man-made satellite into space (photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)
This Week in History: Russia took the world by surprise when it launched the first man-made satellite into space
(photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)
This week in history we bring significant events from the past 5 decades right to you. The first is the reporting of the first man-made satellite which was visible all around the Earth in 1957. The next story we have is of the savage clashes in Beirut during the onset of the Lebanese Civil War in 1975. The third and final story is of the retirement of world-renowned Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal in 2001.
On October 6, 1957, The Jerusalem Post reported on the first man-made satellite being launched into space. The article states that Russia took the world by surprise and trumped the United States in particular when it launched the satellite "Sputnik" or "fellow traveler". The Russians' launch shocked the American public and began the Space Age. At the time, the U.S. had also been working on a scientific satellite program but it had not yet launched a satellite.
Since 1957, thousands of satellites and space stations have been launched into orbit around the Earth. 
The Lebanese Civil War was a multifaceted civil war that lasted from 1975 to 1990. In the first year of the conflict, minor clashes in Lebanon escalated quickly between the leftist Muslin Lebanese National Movement pitted against the Christian-conservative Phalangists. On October 9, 1975, The Jerusalem Post reported on the fighting which raged all over the Lebanese capital city of Beirut.  The front-page article notes that the Christian right-wing Phalangist militia men broke a cease-fire by firing at the Muslims and leftist strongholds. The story also reports that one of the worse incidents took place at a Beirut bakery where a rocket exploded while people were lined up to buy bread. It was estimated over the 15-year war, more than 120,000 people died.
 
On October 8, 2001, The Post provided a tribute for world-renowned Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal's retirement. The article stated that at the age of 92, the Austrian Jewish Holocaust survivor's search for Nazi war criminals was over. It quotes Wiesenthal as saying that within weeks of his liberation of Mauthausen Concentration Camp, he had prepared a list of names of suspected Nazi war criminals and that he dedicated his life to bringing justice. "The murdered six million Jews were six million murdered witnesses," Wiesenthal said. Among the most prominent Nazis war criminals Wiesenthal helped bring to justice was Josef Mengele, a doctor from Auschwitz Concentration Camp. Wiesenthal died in 2005 at the age of 96.