June 3 Birthday
On June 3, 1965, Ed White opened the hatch of Gemini 4 and stepped into space. He was tethered to the spacecraft by a twenty-five-foot umbilical cord and propelled himself with a handheld maneuvering gun. He floated for twenty-three minutes, covering six orbits. He was reluctant to return, telling Mission Control, "This is the saddest moment of my life." Gemini 4 was the first American spacewalk, three months after Alexei Leonov's. White was later assigned to Apollo 1 and died in the launch pad fire on January 27, 1967, along with Gus Grissom and Roger Chaffee. In 1937, the Duke of Windsor — formerly King Edward VIII — married Wallis Simpson at the Château de Candé in France. He had abdicated the British throne in December 1936 to marry the twice-divorced American. The Church of England would not allow the king to marry a divorcée. The marriage was a small ceremony with twenty guests. No member of the royal family attended. The couple became the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and lived in exile in Paris and Nassau. They remained married until his death in 1972. She died in 1986. Whether she was worth a throne is a question historians have debated for ninety years. Jefferson Davis, born this day in 1808, was the president of the Confederate States of America. He was a West Point graduate, a Mexican War hero, and a US senator from Mississippi. He believed in states' rights and slavery. He was captured by Union forces on May 10, 1865, while attempting to flee in his wife's cloak. He was imprisoned at Fort Monroe for two years and was released on bail posted by abolitionist Horace Greeley. People born on June 3 fall under the zodiac sign of Gemini. The birthstone is Pearl and the birth flower is Rose. Historical events on June 3 include 1937: Duke of Windsor marries Wallis Simpson in France after abdication crisis, 1965: Ed White becomes first American to walk in space, 1989: Ayatollah Khomeini dies. Famous people born on June 3 include Jefferson Davis (1808), Paulette Goddard (1910), Anderson Cooper (1967).