I recall reading about the successful launch of Vanguard I in the newspaper the next day. I believe the satellite is still in orbit and holds the record for having traveled farther than any other man-made object.
The Vanguard 1 is still up there. IIRC it is predicted to come down in the mid 2030’s.
Werner Von Braun created the first American satellite after the first Vanguard attempt failed. Most people do not know that he was ready to go with the Jupiter years before. They chose the Vanguard because it used scratch built civilian hardware. Eisenhower was afraid of provoking the Soviets. Von Braun secretly set some hardware aside just for this purpose, and accomplished it in just months. If they had gone his way in the first place, the first satellite would have been American, and it may well have launched in 1956. Think about the implications of that.
The voyager spacecrafts have traveled farther than any other spacecraft.