On December 8, 2010, the American aerospace venture SpaceX became the first commercial company to release a spacecraft—the Dragon capsule—into orbit and successfully return it to Earth.

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On December 8, 1542, Mary, Queen of Scots was born, and six days later she became queen of Scotland.

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We are now in need of entries for Round 110 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. More than $850,000 worth of prizes have been awarded since we started running this contest. We recently polled blog readers, asking for suggested article topics. Refer to that poll if you haven’t yet chosen an article topic. Round 110 ends on January 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and that articles on practical “how-to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.