Exactly 21 years ago today Mir was launched - the world's first "permanent" space station. Sadly not so permanent anymore, she was deliberately brought down into the atmosphere on the 23rd of March 2001 where she broke apart and burned up.
Mir was assembled in orbit from several different modules that were launched at various times, the first was launched from the Baikonur launch complex in the USSR at 21:28 UTC on the 19th of February 1986. (Technically 21 years ago "tomorrow" our time)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mir
There's an image here of several sections leaving fiery trails through the atmosphere - a sad end for a worthy craft. During her time she travelled a total of 3,638,470,307 km's and orbited the earth 89067 times.
