On this day in 1975, the NBC sketch comedy/variety show Saturday Night Live debuted.
On this day in 1976, Jiang Qing, the third wife and widow of Mao Zedong, was arrested with three associates. The so-called "Gang of Four" was charged with plotting a coup after Mao's death.
On this day in 1982, the Mary Rose, a Tudor carrack which sank in 1545, was salvaged from the sea bed of the Solent, off Portsmouth.
On this day in 1984, aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, astronaut Kathryn D. Sullivan became the first American woman to perform a space walk.
And on this day in 1986, US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev met in Iceland, in an effort to continue discussions about scaling back their intermediate missile arsenals in Europe.