Space shuttle Endeavour cuts a bright swath through the dark sky during this nighttime launch in January 1998.
Courtesy NASA View Slideshow 
1998: The space shuttle Endeavour lifts off from Cape Canaveral, carrying the first American-built component of the International Space Station. Two days later, the connecting node known as Unity is coupled with Zarya (Sunrise), the Russian-built control module, and the space station is a reality.
Following a flawless ascent, the crew of six — five Americans and a Russian — maneuvered Endeavour to within a robot-arm's length of Zarya, which had preceded the shuttle into space on Nov. 20. Once the shuttle had a firm grasp on the Russian module, the job of joining Unity and Zarya began.
Three spacewalks were performed to connect electrical and communications systems, and once the two components were functioning harmoniously, mission specialists began preparing the space station to receive its third module, which the Russians sent up the following year. The Endeavour astronauts also tested Zarya's battery supplies before heading home.
The space station's third component was the service module, which arrived in July 1999. This represented a huge piece of the overall puzzle, housing as it did the first living quarters for a station crew.
The International Space Station was assembled gradually, with most of the world's space-faring nations providing specific components, which were then delivered on a regular basis by U.S. and Russian cargo ships. Following the loss of the shuttle Columbia in February 2003, the Russians took up the burden of shuttling supplies and components to the ISS until the shuttle program was back on its feet.
Now, a decade later, expansion of the space station continues. It is easily the most expensive construction project in history, and it got a little more expensive on Nov. 18 when a spacewalking astronaut lost her tool bag.
Endeavour, incidentally, was named after 18th-century explorer James Cook's ship. Cook, of course, was an Englishman, hence the British spelling of the word. The shuttle is currently scheduled to be decommissioned in 2010.
Source: Various
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