Is the Fireflash jinxed? Well, yes, but it was even more so on this day in the 1965 with the first broadcast of the Thunderbirds episode Operation Crash-Dive! | Official Gerry Anderson

'Thunderbirds' The Blueprint for Team America Before Team America: World Police hit screens, its biggest inspiration arrived in 1965 with Thunderbirds. The British series used “Supermarionation,” Gerry and Sylvia Anderson’s groundbreaking puppet tech that synced moving mouths to recorded dialogue. The secret-base rescue missions, the style, the tone—Thunderbirds walked so Team America could sprint. | Did You Catch This?

Thunderbird 1 was shot down over the desert and Scott Tracy discovered a lost civilisation when the Thunderbirds episode The Uninvited was first broadcast in the UK on December 2nd 1965! | Official Gerry Anderson