Moon landing the only country to have successfully conducted manned missions to the Moon, with the last departing the lunar surface in December 1972. After the unsuccessful attempt by the Luna 1 to land on the Moon in 1959, the Soviet Union performed the first hard (unpowered) Moon landing later that same year with the Luna 2 spacecraft, a feat the U.S. duplicated in 1962 with Ranger 4. Since then, twelve Soviet and U.S. spacecraft have used braking rockets to make soft landings and perform scientific operations on the lunar surface, between 1966 and 1976. In 1966 the USSR accomplished the first
1959 News of the World Snooker Plus Tournament matches were played in Burroughes Hall, London. Joe Davis made the first century break, 108, on the opening day of the tournament. Joe Davis made sure of victory by beating John Pulman in the penultimate match. Fred Davis lost the last match 13–12 but he had needed to win only 11 frames to finish in second place ahead of Pulman. Table The positions were determined firstly by the number of matches won (MW) and, in the event of a tie, the number of frames won (FW). 1959 News of the World Snooker Plus Tournament The 1959 News of the World