Good morning. It's August 17th — let's begin where we always do: on this very date in history.
📅 On This Day — August 17
🛍️ (It's also National Thrift Shop Day.)
1959 — Miles Davis released "Kind of Blue," recorded almost entirely in first takes — still the best-selling jazz album of all time.
1970 — The Soviet Union launched Venera 7, which would become the first spacecraft to transmit data from the surface of another planet when it reached Venus.
1978 — The Double Eagle II touched down near Paris, becoming the first balloon to cross the Atlantic — 137 hours after leaving Maine. (The very flight our 1978 issue caught mid-ocean four days ago.)
1982 — The world's first commercial compact disc was pressed in Germany — ABBA's "The Visitors" — launching the CD age exactly 23 years, to the day, after "Kind of Blue."
2008 — Swimmer Michael Phelps won his eighth gold medal of the Beijing Olympics, the most ever at a single Games.
Now, let's set the dial back to 1962…
⏪ REWIND: 1962 John F. Kennedy is president, a first-class stamp is 4 cents, gas is about 28 cents a gallon — and something remarkable is beaming across the Atlantic.
📰 The Headlines The Space Age meets the TV age: this summer, the newly launched Telstar satellite is relaying the first live television pictures across the Atlantic — faces and news flashing between America and Europe in an instant, a glimpse of the connected world to come.
🎬 At the Movies Filling theaters: The Music Man — Robert Preston striding into River City as fast-talking Professor Harold Hill, "Seventy-Six Trombones" and all. Wholesome, brassy, and pure summer.
🎵 On the Charts At #1 is "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do" by Neil Sedaka — that irresistible "down dooby doo down down" hook, the biggest hit of his career.
🏆 In Sports In Los Angeles, Maury Wills is running wild. The Dodgers shortstop is stealing bases at a pace no one has seen — he'll finish with 104, shattering Ty Cobb's 47-year-old record and taking home the NL MVP.
🏰 The Disney Vault In theaters from Walt Disney: Bon Voyage! — Fred MacMurray and Jane Wyman taking the whole family on a comedy-of-errors European vacation, the kind of gentle Disney live-action romp that defined the era.
— a couple of quick things before you go —
👟 Step Challenge: the Summer 2026 Step Challenge is rolling — grab the free Pacer app and walk with us: Join the challenge (already have Pacer? Club code E42727228). Every step counts.
💡 Health Snap: starting a fresh week? Pick one small thing — a little more water, a short walk, five minutes of quiet — and just do that one.
🎉 Born on an August 17th — or know someone who was?
Forward this to them right now — there's no better "this is the day you were born" gift than a little time travel.
🎂 In good company: August 17 babies include screen icon Mae West (1893), Robert De Niro (1943), Go-Go's singer Belinda Carlisle (1958), Sean Penn (1960), and actor Austin Butler (1991).
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