August 20th, 1977, Voyager Two was launched. A few weeks later Voyager One followed. Voyager Two was the fourth space probe to fly by Jupiter after Pioneer 10, 11, and Voyager One. It was the third space probe to fly by Saturn after Pioneer 11 and Voyager One. It was the first (and thus far the only) space probe to fly by Uranus and Neptune. What is not well known was that Voyager One could've been the first space probe to fly by Pluto (years before New Horizons in 2015) if they had sacrificed a close look at Titan when it flew by Saturn. But the mission planners were very uncertain that Voyager One would operate long enough to reach Pluto so they preferred the more certain thing of getting a good look at Titan instead.
Which isn't a bad trade-off, since the pics we got of Pluto with New Horizons are far better than anything we could have gotten with Voyager. It's possible, though we'll never know, that had Voyager gone past Pluto, we never would have gotten New Horizons.
Quite likely as IIRC the original inspiration for New Horizons (and its previous proposed incarnations like Pluto Express) was the postage stamps issued for each of the planets with the first mission to explore them mentioned except for Pluto which said simply "Not yet explored"
That's a good call. Yes, we know now that Voyager would've made it to Pluto, but it was better to go for something certain.
