This Day in History (1962): Channel 2 TV to fete 5th birthday Monday

From the Sept. 12, 1962, edition of the Sun and Flare

Channel 2 Television will celebrate its fifth anniversary next week with a commemorative, fast-paced special show and inauguration of new program material.

The two-part anniversary program will be telecast on Monday, Sept. 17, at 9:40 p.m. in both Arabic and English.

Presentation to the station of the National Safety Council's "Public Interest Award for Exceptional Service to Safety in 1961 will be featured on the special show. A film depicting studio personnel and operations is to be included.

A new language series "Let's Learn English," is scheduled to start shortly as part of Channel 2's new programming. Introductory sessions in Arabic will be presented first on three successive Saturdays beginning September 15. The first lesson will be telecast on Oct. 6.

Developed by the U.S. Information Service, this recently inaugurated language series is being used effectively in many countries throughout the world.

The complete course consists of 26 lessons with each lesson divided into five 15-minute segments. A different unit will be shown each weeknight during the early part of the evening -- Saturday through Wednesday.

Supplementary textbooks "Let's Learn English" are being issued upon request. Interested people may obtain copies by writing to The Producer, Channel 2 TV, Box 1359, Dhahran.

Adding emphasis to local productions, programming next week include three new shows in Arabic produced entirely by Channel 2. A "Bulletin Board" program on Sundays and Wednesdays will provide time for public service announcements.

"Inventions," stories about famous inventors, will be moderated by Mahmoud Essa Mashhady on Sundays. Thursday will feature "Words of Beauty," poetry readings in Arabic.

Also on this date

2013 — NASA confirms that the Voyager 1 probe has become the first man-made object to enter interstellar space

2007 — Former Philippine President Joseph Estrada is convicted of plunder

2001 — Ansett Australia, Australia's first commercial interstate airline, collapses due to increased strain on the international airline industry, leaving 10,000 people unemployed

1992 — NASA launches Space Shuttle Endeavour. On board are Mae Carol Jemison, the first African-American woman in space; Mamoru Mohri, the first Japanese citizen to fly in a U.S. spaceship; and Mark Lee and Jan Davis, the first married couple in space.

1984 — Dwight Gooden sets the baseball record for strikeouts in a season by a rookie with 276

1977 — South African anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko dies in police custody

1962 — U.S. President John F. Kennedy delivers his "We choose to go to the Moon" speech

1959 — The Soviet Union launches the Lunik II rocket at the Moon

1958 — Jack Kilby demonstrates the first working integrated circuit while working at Texas Instruments

1940 — The Hercules Powder Plant Disaster in the U.S. kills 51 and injures more than 200

1933 — Leo Szilard, waiting for a red light on Southampton Row in Bloomsbury, conceives the idea of the nuclear chain reaction

1923 — Southern Rhodesia (today called Zimbabwe) is annexed by the United Kingdom

1906 — The Newport Transporter Bridge is opened in Newport, South Wales, by Viscount Tredegar

1885 — In professional soccer, Arborath sets a world record in defeating Bon Accord 36-0

1846 — Elizabeth Barrett elopes with Robert Browning

1683 — In the battle of Vienna, several European armies join forces to defeat the Ottoman Empire

490 BC — The Athenians and their Plataean allies defeat the first Persian invasion force of Greece at the Battle of Marathon