A look back at the year 1957. Highlights include, the Russians launch Sputnik satellite, Bigots and segregationists riot in the South, includes a report from John Secondari, labor corruption, a detailed report by ABC correspondents, Dave Beck and Jimmy Hoffa denounced by Senator John McClellan, Senate committee excerpts
including Senator McClellan, Robert Kennedy, Senator Irving Ives, Jimmy Hoffa plays dumb, many unions are investigated for possible corruption, integration problems, riots in Little Rock, Arkansas, spurred on by Gov. Orval Faubus, Federal troops restore order, comments by Faubus, Eisenhower, and Negro students, Sputnik launched US prestige is lowered, US values need changing, Khrushchev threatens US "Sputnik Diplomacy," comments by Dr. Edward Teller, Werner Von Braun, General Jimmy Doolittle, on space crisis. Comment on Khrushchev by Cecil Brown, President Eisenhower's illnesses, Nato troubles and Nato summit meeting in Paris not much accomplished, reports from France and England, Quincy Howe comments on the potential crisis from the Middle East and Asia to be capitalized by Russia, US suffers a further setback in failure to launch a satellite. 

John Daly is the host.                                                                            

A SPECIAL NBC TV Broadcast broadest on Video Tape, recorded in Las Vegas, Nevada sponsored by General Motors Corporation. A retrospective on the age of flight and the dawn of the space age, climaxing a congress meeting at Las Vegas. Narrated by Bob Considine. 

An NBC NEWS SPECIAL PROJECTS produced by Roy Neal. 

At the World Congress of Flight in Las Vegas, Nevada, 
representatives of 42 nations meet to discuss airship, missile, and space progress and  plans. Bob Considine is host of this report from McCarran Field, Indiana Springs Gunnery Range and the Las Vegas Race Track. 

A description of aviation now and in the future, descriptions by Bob Considine, Jacqueline Cochran, General Curtis Le May, Jimmy Doolittle, General Nathan Twining, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Bob Cummings, actor and Air Force Reserve officer, jet pilots Scott Crossfield and Capt. Bob White and others describe future airliners and space vehicles.

American and foreign aircraft, missiles and spaceships are described on the ground and in flight. 

Discussions related to the X-15 is discussed, the F105 new fighter planes, and F106 defensive planes, as well as a segment on helicopters, and a half plane, half car vehicle. 

Included are two General Motors plugs for their FIREBIRD 3 elaborate automobile, the most advanced ever built.  

Dr. Edward Teller, called the father of the H-bomb, makes a plea for international amity in the conquest of space. Frank Lahm, one of the oldest pilots alive, a man who had been taught to fly by the Wright Brothers, winds up the telecast, saying there is no reason to doubt that man will travel in space. 

NOTE: This peerless television audio air check survives only as audio preserved by Archival Television Audio, Inc. 
Phil Gries has improved the audio track from its original marginal quality when originally broadcast on NBC TV April 19, 1959. 
                                                                                                                     

October 27,1959-
Documentaries produced by CBS Television usually telecast as Specials.
Fred Friendly produced the series for the first several years. Most notable broadcast that put this iconic documentary series of specials on the map was Edward R. Murrow reporting HARVEST OF SHAME (NOVEMBER 25, 1960) about the plight of the American farm worker and the shocking conditions in which farm laborers live, travel and labor in American fields and orchids.  

This report shows the flight of Venus space-pro Mariner 11, scheduled to navigate our planet a distance of 21,000 miles in two days (12/12/62). Also, an overview of humankind's efforts to explore deep space and a look at the possibilities of life on other planets. 

Interviewed arr project director Robert Parks and scientists Edward Teller, Sir Bernard Lovell, and Robert Bracewell. 

A news special on the US Venus probe.  

 Walter Cronkite Reports.

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