Tidbits Grand Forks - June 4 Issue

JUNE JUMBLE (continued): • The Flying Wallenda Family have been performing various daredevil stunts since 1922. Nik Wallenda, a seventhgeneration member of the group made history on June 15, 2012 when he became the first to successfully walk on a tightrope over Niagara Falls from the United States into Canada, crossing at the river’s widest point. Although the family is well-known for performing feats without a safety net, Nik was required by ABC television to wear a safety hardness for this stunt, the first time in his life he was required to do so. Just one year later, in June of 2013, Nik was making history once again as he became the first aerialist to walk over the Little Colorado River Gorge in the Grand Canyon. Walking on a wire just 2 inches thick, Nik crossed the 1,400-foot distance, 1,500 feet above the river, this time without a harness or safety net. Having made his professional tightrope walking debut at age 13, this daredevil now holds nine Guinness World Records for his many aerobatic stunts.

• June 18, 1983 marked the first day that an American woman went into space. Flying on the space shuttle Challenger, 32-year-old astronaut Sally Ride spent six days on NASA’s seventh shuttle mission. Ride joined NASA in 1978 after achieving a bachelor’s degree in physics, another bachelor’s in English, a Master’s of Science, and a doctorate in Physics. She made history again in 1984 when she became the first American woman to travel to space a second time, another Challenger mission which lasted nine days. However, Ride wasn’t the first woman in space. That honor goes to Soviet Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, who also made her historic trip in June. In 1963, she spent almost three days aboard Vostok 6 orbiting Earth 48 times.