On This Day ...

... Sputnik 5 was launched into orbit on 19th August 1960 with 2 dogs and three mice. The animals were successfully recovered, and one, Strelka, later gave birth to puppies.

At a dinner during the summit between US president John F. Kennedy and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna in June 1961, Khrushchev sat next to the president's wife Jaqueline Kennedy. He bragged about the flight of Soviet space dogs and told Mrs Kennedy about the puppies of the space dog Strelka. Out of lack of dinner topics and more as joke, she said to Khrushchev "couldn't you send me one?". She did not think more about it until two months later when Soviet ambassador Menshikov, during a visit to the White House, delivered one of the puppies to an astounded Mrs Kennedy.

Emergency Blip time - with inspiration curtesy of HistoryOrb.com, a web site listing important events