When did the Challenger disaster happen?

The disaster was caused by the failure of an O-ring seal in the right solid rocket booster, which had been made brittle by the unusually cold weather that morning. Hot gas escaped and led to the breakup of the vehicle over the Atlantic Ocean. The crew included Christa McAuliffe, a teacher selected to be the first private citizen in space, so millions of schoolchildren were watching. The Rogers Commission investigation, featuring physicist Richard Feynman's famous ice-water demonstration, identified both technical and management failures. Shuttle flights were suspended for nearly three years.