August 29, 1997

A Big Mac cost $2.42 that summer of 1997, and the Dow Jones sat at 7,908 — the same week that two of the largest defense companies in the country, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, announced a merger that would reshape the American military contracting industry. At the multiplex, "Men in Black" was the summer's dominant film, while on the radio, "I'll Be Missing You" by Puff Daddy and Faith Evans had held the top spot for weeks following the death of Notorious B.I.G. On July 4, NASA's Pathfinder probe successfully landed on the surface of Mars, deploying the Sojourner rover and transmitting the first ground-level images from the planet in more than two decades.