• Israel celebrates and then mourns when Ilan Ramon, the nation’s first Israeli astronaut for NASA, takes part in the STS-107 Columbia space mission. Ramon, an Israeli fighter pilot, was the space shuttle payload specialist. He and the other six crew members, who conducted about 80 experiments during their 16-day mission, died when the shuttle blew up on re-entry to Earth. Somehow, 37 pages of Ramon’s diary survived the crash and were given to his wife, Rona. Eilat’s new airport is to be named the Ilan and Asaf Ramon International Airport after Ramon and his son, Asaf, who died at age 29 on an F-16 training flight.
• Brainsway is founded to develop a medical device for transcranial magnetic stimulation as a noninvasive treatment for depression. Today, the US Navy uses the product as part of a comprehensive treatment approach to depression for service people and their families.
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