The Movie Timeline - be obsessive, be very obsessive
The Right Stuff - timeline
14th October: Dwight D. Eisenhower is born. (near Abilene, Texas)
Tuesday 14th October: Chuck Yeager breaks the sound barrier.
Tuesday 14th October: Chuck Yeager breaks the sound barrier in the Bell X-1. (Muroc Army Air Field, California)
Friday 4th October: Sputnik One launched, starting the Space Race. (Soviet Union)
Project Mercury begins. (Cape Canaveral, Fla)
Wednesday 12th April: First Manned Space Flight, Yuri Gagarin. (Soviet Union)
Friday 21st July: Gus Grissom's "Liberty Bell 7" capsule has a malfunction with the hatch and it explodes prematurely and takes on water. The capsule sinks and is not recovered until July 20, 1999, 30 years after the first moon landing. (Atlantic Ocean)
Thursday 22nd February: Astronaunt John Glenn makes his first orbital flight. (Cape Canaveral)
May: Gordon Cooper made the last and longest of the Mercury flights. (Cape Canaveral, Fla)