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THIS WEEK IN HISTORY

On September 29, 1988 Stacy Allison of Portland, Oregon, became the first American woman to reach the top of Mount Everest, which at 29,035 feet above sea level is the highest point on earth. Allison, a member of the Northwest American Everest Expedition, climbed the Himalayan peak using the southeast ridge route. Mount Everest sits on the crest of the Great Himalayas in Asia, lying on the border between Nepal and Tibet. Called Chomo-Lungma, or "Mother Goddess of the Land," by the Tibetans, the English named the mountain after Sir George Everest, a 19th-century British surveyor of South Asia. The summit of Everest reaches two-thirds of the way through the air of the earth's atmosphere--at about the cruising altitude of jet airliners--and oxygen levels there are very low, temperatures are extremely cold, and weather is unpredictable and dangerous.






On October 4, 1957, Russia launched the world's first satellite, Sputnik. The satellite marked the beginning of development of international TV and phone transmissions. The United States then launched its first satellite, Explorer I, in January 1958. In December 1958, Project SCORE, the first experimental communications satellite was launched. A number of other experimental satellites were launched in the late 1950s, and on October 4, 1960, the first communications satellite with signal reception and transmission equipment was launched.








On October 5, 1919, the first conversation between a submerged submarine and a ship took place. The United States submarine H-2, submerged in the Hudson River near New York City, radioed the destroyer Blakey.



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