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This Happened—January 28: Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster


As it was being watched live by millions, the Challenger space shuttle suddenly exploded 73 seconds after launch, killing everyone aboard. It happened on this day in 1986.

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What was the Challenger mission?

The crew had the mission of deploying a communications satellite and studying Halley's Comet while they were in orbit, in addition to the task of taking school teacher Christa McAuliffe into space.

Why did the Challenger explode?

A failure of the shuttle's right solid rocket booster (SRB) caused by record-low temperatures of the launch, and allowed hot pressurized gas from within the SRB to leak and burn the surrounding machinery. The failure of the internal system through the shuttle at incredible speed with aerodynamic forces that tore the ship apart.

Who was aboard the Challenger?

There were 7 crew members onboard, including F. Richard Scobee, the Commander, pilot Michael J. Smith, Mission Specialists Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka and Judith Resnik, Gregory Jarvis a Payload Specialist and Christa McAuliffe, a Payload Specialist and teacher from Concord, New Hampshire.

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FOCUS: Israel-Palestine War

Why Taiwan Backs Israel Even If Its Own Struggle Mirrors Palestine's

Taiwanese, though under the weight of a far more powerful neighbor, have the tendency to idealize Israel and fail to create a self-definition beyond the island nation's anti-China image.

Photo of police forces in Taipei, Taiwan, ahead of clashes during anti-government protests in Nov. 2020

Police forces in Taipei, Taiwan, ahead of clashes during anti-government protests in Nov. 2020

Josephine

TAIPEI — After the October 7 attacks on Israel by Hamas, who killed around 1,200 people and took 200 hostages, Israel imposed a complete blockade on Gaza and began a large-scale counteroffensive. Originally, most Western countries fully supported Israel's right of self-defense. However, sentiments have shifted in a section of the west over the past month, with Israel's counterattacks having caused up to 10,000 deaths in Gaza and pushing the Gazan population into a humanitarian crisis, marked by a dire shortage of water, electricity, food, and medicine. With the opening of a new front by Israel on the Lebanese-Syrian border, there are fears that the fighting could expand even further, resulting in an even greater humanitarian catastrophe.

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After the Hamas raid shocked the world, public opinion in the Chinese-speaking world, like in western society, split into two. One side firmly supported Israel's determination to defend its homeland and national sovereignty, while the other side invoked the region's history and sympathized with the Palestinians.

However, unlike in the west, most Chinese people did not choose a side based on well-considered national interests or humanitarian concern for the disadvantaged, but rather based on their attitudes toward the United States and China. Being anti-American or anti-China has become a fundamental factor determining whether you support Palestine or Israel.

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