The Sputnik crisis is the name for the American reaction to the success of the Sputnik program. It was a key event during the Cold War that began on October 4, 1957 when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial Earth satellite.

The United States had held itself to be the world leader in space technology and missile development.^{[citation needed]} However, the appearance of Sputnik I and the failure of the first two U.S. launch attempts rattled the American public. President Dwight D. Eisenhower called the shock the “Sputnik Crisis” because of the looming threat of the Soviet Union. During the Cold War, America was in a state of fear from the Soviet Union. Once the Soviets started to launch satellites into orbit, even a payload harmless to the U.S., the concern increased. If the USSR could launch a satellite, it could also launch a nuclear warhead able to travel intercontinental distances. The Soviets had demonstrated the ICBM capability or the R-7 booster more than one month earlier on August 21, with a successful flight test of ~6,000 km downrange as announced by TASS five days after the event (and published that month in Aviation Week, among other media).

Jasna Veličković (Serbian Cyrillic: Јасна Величковић) (Belgrade, 1974) has been living and working as a composer in the Netherlands since 2001 where she completed a Masters in music at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague under Louis Andriessen, Gilius van Bergeijk and Clarence Barlow with distinction. She completed her Bachelors in composition at the Faculty of Music in Belgrade under Srdjan Hofman.

Jasna Velickovic has written and been performed by various ensembles including Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra, Belgrade Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, Dutch Radio Kamerorkest conducted by Peter Eotvos, Robot orchestra by Godfried Willem Raes, David Kweksilber's Big Band, Maarten Altena Ensemble, LOOS, 'de Ereprijs', Le Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, Ensemble Aleph, Piano Possibile, pianoduo Post & Mulder, Claron McFadden, Nada Kolundzija, Stephanie Pan, Gośka Isphording, Debora Richards as well by ensembles with specific instrumentation formed for the particular piece.

Her works have been performed at festivals such as Holland Festival, Gaudeamus Music Week, Music Biennale Zagreb, Archipel Festival (Swiss), Time of Music (Finland), Festival Aspekte (Austria), A-devantgarde (Germany), Manca (France), International Review of Composers (Serbia) among others.

Deborah Richards is an award winning Australian journalist, of English descent from the Edwards family. Richards has worked for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Essential Viewing Group, and Special Broadcasting Service.

Richards attended Brighton Beach Primary School in Melbourne, Australia, and then the Firbank Girls' Grammar School from Year 7, but transferred to Morongo Girls' College (now Kardinia International College) for the last term of Year 10 until graduation. She then enrolled at Monash University in 1972, taking an Arts degree, with a double major in Sociology and English. Richards deferred her English Honours year in 1976, and concentrated her efforts into building a mudbrick house in the Macclesfield area, located in the Dandenong Hills region, above Melbourne.

Richards career began at the ABC, in 1983, when she was selected for the television producer training course. Two years later, Richards moved to New South Wales to work at Four Corners. Her career there lasted nine years; two years was spent as a reporter, another two as an associate producer, and five as a field producer. Richards was responsible for the "re-vamping" of Lateline (an ABC program), and the Business Show (an SBS program). She was the executive producer of MediaWatch, and has produced several Australian Stories, and a documentary on lymphoma for the Leukemia Foundation of Australia.

George Galloway (born 16 August 1954) is a British politician, author, journalist, and broadcaster, and the Respect Member of Parliament (MP) for Bradford West. He was previously an MP for the Labour Party, for Glasgow Hillhead and then its successor constituency Glasgow Kelvin from 1987 until 2005. He was expelled from the Labour Party in October 2003 because of his strident public opposition to the Iraq War. He subsequently became a founding member of the left-wing Respect Party, and was elected as the MP for Bethnal Green and Bow in 2005. In 2010, Galloway unsuccessfully contested the seat of Poplar and Limehouse, and in 2011 he unsuccessfully contested the Glasgow list for the Scottish Parliament, before being elected as an MP in the Bradford West by-election, 2012.

Galloway is well known for his campaigns in support of the Palestinians in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. In the late-1980s Hansard records him delivering a ferocious assault on the Ba'ath regime, and Galloway opposed Saddam's regime until the United States-led Gulf War in 1991. Galloway is known for a visit to Iraq where he met Saddam Hussein, and delivered a speech, which ended in English with the statement "Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability." He has always stated that he was addressing the Iraqi people in the speech. Galloway testified to the United States Senate in 2005 over alleged illicit payments from the United Nations' Oil for Food Programme.

Sir Gerald Bernard Kaufman (born 21 June 1930) is a British Labour Party politician, who has been a Member of Parliament (MP) since 1970, first for Manchester Ardwick, and then subsequently for Manchester Gorton. He was a government minister during the 1970s, and a member of the Shadow Cabinet in the 1980s.

Born in Leeds to Jewish parents, who came from Poland before the First World War,the son of Louis and Jane Kaufman, he was the youngest of six children. He was educated at Leeds Grammar School, and graduated in philosophy, politics and economics at the University of Oxford (Queen's College) where he was Secretary of the University Labour Club. He was assistant general secretary of the Fabian Society from (1954–55), a leader writer on the Daily Mirror (1955–64) and a journalist on the New Statesman (1964–65). He was Parliamentary Press Liaison Officer for the Labour Party (1965–70), and eventually, a member of Prime Minister Harold Wilson's informal "kitchen cabinet".

In the 1955 general election Kaufman had unsuccessfully contested the safe Conservative seat of Bromley, and in the 1959 general election, Gillingham.