<span class="SFPTagline"> From SCIFIPEDIA </span>

Space Shuttle Columbia launches (1981). The N.A.S.A. space shuttle Columbia lifts off from the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, USA, on its maiden voyage into space. It is the first manned spacecraft designed for repeated use. Astronauts John W. Young and Robert L. Crippen take Columbia on a two-day mission to test the new space vehicle's capabilities, opening up a program that eventually includes more than 75 missions. This first flight ends as scheduled with a landing April 14, 1981, at Edwards Air Force Base, California.

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Tom Clancy is born (1947). Best-selling novelist and international espionage expert Tom Clancy has seen his work adapted to the screen with such hits as The Hunt for Red October (1990), Patriot Games (1992) and Clear and Present Danger (1994). One of his more recent works, Net Force, was made into a television miniseries. Tom was born in Baltimore, Maryland, USA.

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Rebecca opens (1940). Rebecca, one of the most romantic thrillers of all time, opened on this day in 1940. Alfred Hitchcock's masterful adaptation of the novel by Daphne Du Maurier, about a woman haunted by the spirit of her husband's first wife, goes on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture of the Year. The inimitable cast includes Laurence Olivier, Joan Fontaine, George Sanders and Judith Anderson.