By: History.com Editors

2000

First residential crew arrives aboard the International Space Station

History.com Editors

Published: July 24, 2019

Last Updated: January 24, 2025

On November 2, 2000, the first residential crew arrives aboard the International Space Station. The arrival of Expedition 1 marked the beginning of a new era of international cooperation in space and of the longest continuous human habitation in low Earth orbit, which continues to this day.

The space agencies of the United States, Russia, Canada, Japan and Europe agreed to cooperate on the ISS in 1998, and its first components were launched into orbit later that year. Five space shuttle flights and two unmanned Russian flights delivered many of its core components and partially assembled the space station. Two Russians, Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev, accompanied by NASA’s Bill Shepherd, were selected as the crew of Expedition 1.

The Space Race

The U.S. competition with the U.S.S.R. for technological dominance spurred the U.S. on to the first-ever landing on the moon.

The trio arrived at the ISS on a Russian Soyuz rocket launched from Kazakhstan. Unlike all subsequent missions, Expedition 1’s tasks consisted mostly of constructing and installing various components and activating others. This was sometimes easier said than done: the crew reported taking over a day to activate one of the station’s food warmers. Throughout their time in space, they were visited and resupplied by two unmanned Russian rockets and three space shuttle missions, one of which brought the photovoltaic arrays, giant solar panels, which provide the station with most of its power. Shepherd, Gidzenko and Krikalev became the first humans to adjust to long-term life in low orbit, circling the Earth roughly 15.5 times a day and exercising at least two hours a day in order to offset the muscle atrophy that occurs in low gravity.

On March 10, the space shuttle Discovery brought three new residents to relieve Expedition 1, who landed back on Earth at the Kennedy Space Center on March 21. Since then, humans have continuously resided on the ISS, with plans to continue until at least 2030. 236 people from 18 nations have visited the station and a number of new modules have been added, many for the purpose of research into biology, material sciences, the feasibility of further human space travel and more.

Timeline

Also on This Day in History

Discover more of the major events, famous births, notable deaths and everything else history-making that happened on November 2nd

1795

James Polk is born

On November 2, 1795, James Knox Polk is born in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. Polk grew up on his father’s plantation in Tennessee and attended the University of North Carolina, from which he graduated with honors in 1818. Like many presidents before and after him, he worked as a lawyer before entering politics. Polk’s father, […]

1865

Warren G. Harding is born

On November 2, 1865, Warren Gamaliel Harding, the future 29th American president, is born in Corsica, Ohio. In 1891, Harding married Florence Mabel Kling De Wolfe. Florence was influential throughout Harding’s political career and it was at her urging that Harding, who was working as an editor of the Marion Star newspaper, entered politics. In […]

1917

Balfour Declaration letter written

On November 2, 1917, Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour writes an important letter to Britain’s most illustrious Jewish citizen, Baron Lionel Walter Rothschild, expressing the British government’s support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. The letter would eventually become known as the Balfour Declaration. Britain’s support for the Zionist movement came from its concerns regarding […]

1947

Howard Hughes’s “Spruce Goose” flies

The Spruce Goose—at one time the largest aircraft ever built—is piloted by designer Howard Hughes on its first and only flight.

Howard Hughes in Cockpit of Spruce Goose

1948

Truman defeats Dewey

In one of the greatest upsets in presidential election history, Democratic incumbent Harry S. Truman defeats his Republican challenger, Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York, by just over two million popular votes. In the days preceding the vote, political analysts and polls were so behind Dewey that on election night, long before all the […]

1960

“Lady Chatterley’s Lover” obscenity trial ends

On November 2, 1960, a landmark obscenity case over Lady Chatterley’s Lover, by D.H. Lawrence, ends in the acquittal of Penguin Books. The publisher had been sued for obscenity in publishing an unexpurgated version of Lawrence’s novel, which deals with the affair between the wife of a wealthy, paralyzed landowner and his estate’s gamekeeper. The […]

1963

Ngo Dinh Diem assassinated in South Vietnam

Following the overthrow of his government by South Vietnamese military forces the day before, President Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother are captured and killed by a group of soldiers.  The death of Diem caused celebration among many people in South Vietnam, but also lead to political chaos in the nation. The United States subsequently […]

1983

MLK federal holiday declared

President Ronald Reagan signs a bill in the White House Rose Garden designating a federal holiday honoring Martin Luther King, Jr., to be observed on the third Monday of January. Martin Luther King, Jr., was born in Atlanta in 1929, the son of a Baptist minister. He received a doctorate degree in theology and in […]

1986

Grete Waitz wins her eighth New York City Marathon

On November 2, 1986, Norwegian distance runner Grete Waitz wins her eighth New York City marathon. She finished the 26-mile, 385-yard course in 2:28.6, more than a mile ahead of the second- and third-place women in the race. Waitz had won her first marathon in New York in 1978 and she won the NYC marathon […]

Marathon winner Grete Waitz, NY City Marathon 1986.

1989

A nurse’s aide gets life imprisonment for murder

Gwendolyn Graham is sentenced to life imprisonment with no possibility of parole for killing five elderly female residents of the Alpine Manor Nursing Home near Grand Rapids, Michigan. Both Graham and her criminal and romantic partner, Catherine Wood, had been employed as nurses’ aides at the home. A Texas native, Graham moved to Michigan in […]

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Citation Information

Article title
First residential crew arrives aboard the International Space Station
Website Name
History
Date Accessed
March 25, 2025
Publisher
A&E Television Networks
Last Updated
January 24, 2025
Original Published Date
July 24, 2019

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