On this day back in 1970, Americans were sitting around their televisions and radios wondering what was going to happen to the astronauts aboard Apollo 13.
The day before, on April 13th, an explosion aboard the spacecraft threw everything off. As we now know (because of reality and the 1995 Ron Howard film), the astronauts made it home safely, thanks to the power in the lunar module, some duct tape and the smarts of them fellers what could still worry a slide rule.
But on this day back in 1970, astronauts James Lovell, John L. Swigert and Fred Haise were still struggling to figure out a way back to the home planet.
Here are some good links about the entire episode:
Another mission overview.
The NASA version of the Apollo 13 accident.
And, finally, a chronology of events.