By Day: Historical Events on July 8th

Vasco da Gama, Portuguese explorer and navigator, and the first person to sail directly from Europe to India. sails from Lisbon on his first voyage to India with a fleet of four vessels. The fleet crew three interpreters—two Arabic speakers and one who spoke several Bantu dialects. It also carried padraos, (stone pillars) to set up as marks of discovery. He eventually rounded the Cape of Good Hope on November 22 and three days later da Gama anchored in Mossel Bay and erected a padrão on an island. His trip ultimately opened a sea route from western Europe to Asia by way of the Cape of Good Hope, ushering in a new era in world history.

NASA's orbiter Atlantis is launched on its 33rd and final mission, also the last space shuttle mission. Atlantis maiden flight was made from October 3 to 7, 1985. Atlantis landed for the final time at the Kennedy Space Center on July 21, 2011. By the end of its final mission, Atlantis had orbited the Earth a total of 4,848 times, traveling nearly 126,000,000 mi (203,000,000 km), which is more than 525 times the distance from the Earth to the Moon. More