History and the Presidents quiz twofer

Mental Floss has a presidential lunchtime quiz today, "Who was president when? Part 2." So I went back and found quiz 1. These are hard since they give you the event and you need to guess who was president. I did alright on quiz one, but the questions grew more obscure on quiz two. I will probably tank quiz three when it comes out.

Part 1

My Results:

Part 2

My results:

Alright history buffs, tell me how you do.

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Those who study history ...

In the "The Political Prisoner" by Charles Coleman Finlay in The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Sixth Annual Collection edit by Gardner Dozois (first appeared in F&SF, August 2008), Finlay adds a corollary to a paraphrase of the familiar aphorism about history:

"Those who don't study history are doomed to repeat it"

Finlay's extension is placed in the words of Max, the story title's political prisoner:

"Those who do study history are doomed to see the repetition coming"

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The day after moon day when the world read the headlines

July 21, 1969 was the day when the world woke up to the headlines of man landing on the moon, though millions watched it live as it happened.

NASA has many great photographs in their history write up of the Apollo 11 mission.



Above is the iconic photo of Buzz Aldrin with Neil Armstrong and LM in reflection in Aldrin's visor. I have linked to Wikipedia's photo with black sky behind Aldrin made by extending this picture vertically, but the original shown here shows that the photo was cut off at the top. Still not a bad photo for being shot by Neil Armstrong in a space suit on the moon without a viewfinder to look through.

Because Neil Armstrong took so many of the pictures during the mission there are only a few photos of him on the moon. The one above is one that Buzz Aldrin took.

Here is another one of Neil Armstrong that has been taken from a high definition restoration of 16mm film taken by a camera on top of the lunar module. You can even see Armstrong's face through his visor. This picture is featured in a new book about the moon landing.

Finally the big blue marble with the Lunar module below.


Let's go back!

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Happy Moon Day - First photograph of man on the moon published in color

This first photo of man on the moon published in color was a supplement to the Philadelphia Inquirer 40 years ago.

My parents saved this photo with the other newspapers from the moon landing forty years ago. It is too large to scan in, so I photographed it. Click on it for larger to read the text and see more detai, though the photo was not that detailed originally.

Now NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Observer has photos of the landing sites 40 years later.

Apollo 11

Apollo 14

Wish I was planning my moon vacation right now. Maybe in another 40 years. Tom Wolfe thinks he knows why we those first steps heralded the end of the program. Charles Stross asks what has the space program done for us? (lots of good stuff).

Let's go back.

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40 years ago, Man on the Moon headlines from the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Norristown Times Herald

I was told today that 40 years ago when Apollo 11 landed on the moon and Neil Armstrong was about to take his historic first step I was crawling around on the floor with my twin sister and my father during the broadcast. I suppose at six months old I was too young to remember the moon landing but my dad tells me I was there watching.

My parents saved the newspapers from the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Norristown Times Herald for July 21, 1969 with the morning headlines proclaiming the landing and first steps of the night before. He are photos of those pages. If you click on them to make them larger you should be able to read some of the articles.

Philadelphia Inquirer July 21, 1969 page 1.

Philadelphia Inquirer July 21, 1969 page 3.

Philadelphia Inquirer July 21, 1969 page 3.
Closeup of conversation as Neil Armstrong takes his first step on the moon.

Philadelphia Inquirer July 21, 1969 page 4.

Philadelphia Inquirer July 21, 1969 page 5.

Norristown Times Herald July 21, 1969 page 1.

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