October 9, 1962

That fall of 1962, gas ran $0.31 a gallon and Kennedy was in the White House — and the Cuban Missile Crisis had just pushed the United States and Soviet Union to the edge of nuclear confrontation before Soviet cargo ships turned back from a U.S. naval blockade and the standoff began to ease. On the cultural front, The 4 Seasons were at number one with "Sherry," and "The Dick Van Dyke Show" was earning Emmy recognition as one of television's top comedies. The New York Yankees defeated the San Francisco Giants in seven games to claim the World Series, and that same October, astronaut Wally Schirra completed six orbits of the Earth aboard the "Sigma 7" capsule, logging nearly nine hours in space during the Mercury-Atlas 8 mission.