 In 1975, three American astronauts blasted off aboard Apollo's spaceship hours after two Soviet cosmonauts were launched aboard a Suez spacecraft for a mission that included a link-up of the two ships in orbit. In 1976, a 36-hour kidnap ordeal began for 26 schoolchildren and their bus drivers. They were abducted near California by three gunmen and imprisoned in an underground cell. The captives escaped unharmed. The kidnappers were caught.