Alan B. Shepard, the first American in space

American Astronaut Alan B. Shepard, one of the original seven astronauts for Mercury Project selected by NASA photographed on April 27, 1959. The “Freedom 7” spacecraft boosted by Mercury-Redstone rocket for the MR-3 mission made the first manned suborbital flight and Astronaut Shepard became the first American in space.

This photo shows Shepard and Freedom 7 after recovery. A recovery helicopter that had been watching Freedom 7 lifted Shepard into the helicopter (HMM-262 Seabat), after he splashed down and came out. Both the Freedom 7 and the astronaut were then flown to the deck of the nearby recovery carrier, the USS Lake Champlain. Freedom 7, now on display in the lobby of the Armel-Leftwich Visitor Center, at the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, MD, was placed there after Shepard's death in 1998.

Redstone rocket and NASA's Mercury Freedom 7 with Alan Shepard

The above photo is of the May 5, 1961 launch of Redstone rocket and NASA's Mercury Freedom 7 with Alan Shepard on the United States' first manned sub-orbital spaceflight.

Mercury-Redstone 3 was a human crewed space mission launched on May 5, 1961 using a Redstone rocket, from Launch Complex 5 (LC-5) at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The Mercury capsule was named “Freedom 7” which performed a suborbital flight piloted by astronaut Alan Shepard, who became the first American in space as a result of this mission. The flight lasted less than 16 minutes and attained an altitude of just over 187 km.

Unlike the earlier Soviet Vostok 1 flight (of erstwhile USSR, now Russia), Shepard did not orbit the earth, but simply went up and down. Such a launch required a less powerful rocket and simpler guidance. He did, however, become the first astronaut to safely return to Earth inside his vehicle, whereas the Soviet cosmonaut parachuted out of his vehicle prior to landing. The Russian Vostok 1’s passenger Yuri Gagarin was the first human being to go to the space.

Seascape Valentine Card 1900

Whitney Valentine, 1887

This card was produced after Esther Howland sold her New England Valentine Company to the George C. Whitney Company in 1881 (owned by Charles Whitney, Worcester, Massachusetts, USA.

Valentine card 1862

St Valentine's Day card, embossed and printed in colour, with silk panel and printed message, "My Dearest Miss, I send thee a kiss", addressed to Miss Jenny Lane (or Lowe, or Love) of Crostwight Hall, Smallburgh, Norfolk. This card is of high antique value. Send this Valentine card of 1862 for Valentines Day. It is worth a hundred valentine greeting cards you can buy now.

Handwritten Valentine poem

Handwritten Valentine poem, "To Susanna", from Cork, Ireland dated Valentine's Day, 1850.

This image of greeting card is in the public domain in the United States. This applies to U.S. works where the copyright has expired because its first publication occurred prior to January 1, 1923. This image might not be in the public domain outside the United States.

Esther Howland Valentine Card

The above image shows a Valentine card produced by Esther Howland in 1850 AD that has the message, "Weddings now are all the go, will you marry me or no". This is a public domain image and you are free to use the above classic beauty of a card by downloading or saving the image to your hard disk.

As Leigh Eric Schmidt, a writer in Graham's American Monthly, observed in 1849 that Saint Valentine's Day had become a national holiday in the United States. The first mass-produced Valentines of embossed paper lace were produced and sold in the United States, shortly after 1847 by Esther Howland of Worcester, Massachusetts. Esther Howland took her inspiration for producing the cards from an English Valentine card she had received. The practice of sending Valentine's cards had existed in England before it became popular in North America. Since 2001, the U.S. Greeting Card Association has been giving an annual "Esther Howland Award for a Greeting Card Visionary."

The Taj Mahal: view from the River Yamuna

This image (The Taj Mahal world heritage site in Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India) was produced by Mr. David Castor, Eslöv, Sweden and found in Wikipedia. The pictures he submits to the Wikipedia Project are released to the public domain. This gives you the right to use them in any way you like, without any kind of notification. All his photos are placed in Category:Images by David Castor or a subcategory thereof.

Mr. David Castor is Minister in the Church of Sweden/Swedish Evangelical Mission and in the Mission Covenant Church of Sweden. He is primarily active on the Swedish Wikipedia, where he is an administrator. You can view a vast collection of his photos/images at his homepage: http://pastorcastor.se/