This Day In History: 0000-08-03
August 1, 1952- “Major Sammy Lee Wins Olympic Gold” “Major Sammy Lee, a 31-year-old Korean American doctory in the U.S. Army, became the first Asian American to win an Olympic medal for the 10-meter high dive. Prior to that, he served in two wars. He was nicknamed the The Oriental from Occidental, a nod to his time as a student-athlete at Occidental College. Later in life, he coached Greg Louganis, who went on to win several diving gold medals at the 1988 Seoul Olympics.”
November 23, 2002 - "First Native American Travels to Space"
John Herrington, a registered member of the Chickasaw Nation, was the first Native American to travel into space as the mission specialist for STS-113, the 16th mission to the International Space Station. During his mission, Herrington performed three spacewalks that totaled 19 hours and 55 minutes. The length of his mission was 13 days, 18 hours and 47 minutes. Herrington was inducted to the Chickasaw Hall of Fame the same year he went into space. William Pogue, a crewman aboard Skylab 4 in 1973-1974, had Choctaw ancestry, but was not an enrolled member of the Choctaw.