MILLENNIUM NOTEBOOK

On Oct. 4, 1957, for the first time in history, an artificial satellite was dispatched to orbit Earth. Trouble is the satellite, or Sputnik, beeped information back to the Soviet Union, and the space race between the Soviets and the United States officially began.

On Dec. 1, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the front of a bus in Montgomery, Ala. She was arrested and had to pay a $10 fine. Segregationists continued to insist that bus segregation was constitutional. But the Supreme Court rules otherwise in a November 1956 ruling.