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← All historyTHE ARCHIVE · 10 STORIES

1946–1999

Giant leaps. Divided worlds. New beginnings.

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MOMENTS FROM THIS ERA

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10 illustrated stories · growing daily
A silver and orange long-distance balloon with a pressurised capsule descends toward an Egyptian desert plain.Cars & transport

Breitling Orbiter 3 lands after circling the world

Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones landed in Egypt on 21 March 1999 after the first nonstop balloon flight around the world, using a hybrid helium and hot-air craft.

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Akashi Kaikyo's two suspension towers and hanging roadway span a strait above a small cargo ship.Cars & transport

Akashi Kaikyo Bridge opens to traffic in Japan

Opened on 5 April 1998, the bridge between Kobe and Awaji Island used a 1,991-metre suspension span to cross a deep, fast-flowing strait.

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A blue and pale yellow passenger train travels through a circular railway tunnel beside a closed cross-passage door.Cars & transport

Channel Tunnel inauguration on 6 May 1994

The fixed link between Britain and France opened ceremonially as a railway system, carrying road vehicles on special shuttle trains.

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A steel suspension bridge carries 1980s cars between wooded islands above the Seto Inland Sea.Cars & transport

Seto-Ohashi road and rail crossing opens, 10 April 1988

The Seto-Ohashi crossing joined Honshu and Shikoku with road traffic above a railway. Its bridges and connecting structures turned an island-hopping engineering project into a continuous transport route.

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A delicate translucent aircraft flies low over the sea with a cyclist visible beneath its long wing.Cars & transport

Gossamer Albatross crosses the English Channel under human power

On June 12, 1979, Bryan Allen flew Gossamer Albatross across the English Channel by pedalling its propeller. The achievement combined an exceptionally light aircraft with a pilot capable of sustained physical effort.

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An imagined 1964 railway platform with a rounded-nose 0 Series bullet train.Cars & transport

Japan opens the Shinkansen: October 1, 1964

Japan’s Tōkaidō Shinkansen began operating between Tokyo and Shin-Osaka on October 1, 1964. Its original 0 Series trains introduced a purpose-built high-speed railway system. The fastest opening timetable covered the journey in four hours; the familiar three-hour-ten-minute service followed in 1965.

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Illustration of a dark carved wooden hull being raised between salvage barges in Stockholm harbour.Cars & transport

Vasa returns to daylight during the final salvage lift

On 24 April 1961, the seventeenth-century Swedish warship Vasa emerged from Stockholm harbour. Her return after almost 333 years underwater combined risky diving, staged lifting and the beginnings of a major archaeological investigation.

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A ski-equipped twin-propeller transport aircraft and bundled expedition members stand on the flat Antarctic plateau.Cars & transport

Que Sera Sera makes the first South Pole aircraft landing

On 31 October 1956, the U.S. Navy transport Que Sera Sera landed at the South Pole. The ski-equipped aircraft carried a name borrowed from a contemporary popular song.

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Two roped mountaineers with metal oxygen cylinders stand on a snowy Himalayan ridge.Cars & transport

Hillary and Tenzing reach Everest with bottled oxygen

On 29 May 1953, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay completed the first confirmed ascent of Mount Everest. Their success combined climbing experience, supplementary oxygen and a large expedition’s work along the route from Nepal.

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Six expedition members aboard a rope-lashed balsa raft leaving a Peruvian harbour.Cars & transport

Kon-Tiki leaves Callao with six men and a parrot

The Kon-Tiki raft departed Peru on 28 April 1947. Its memorable passenger list accompanied an experiment whose historical interpretation remains more complex than the crossing itself.

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