A Civil War In The Olive Garden Parking Lot
Through Robert Lee Hodge, a “re-enactor, battle site preservationist and walking encyclopedia of all things Civil War,” photographer Gregg Segal met his cast of characters and, over the course of five trips to the South and Gettysburg, created this series of, for instance, soldiers camped out in front of Domino’s. (NPR’s The Picture Show)
While we’re at it… another moment in Earth orbit history
NASA and the Russian space agency kicked off a new era in international space cooperation in June of 1995, when the Space Shuttle Atlantis docked with the Russian space station Mir for the first time. (NASA)
While we’re at it… other moments in Earth orbit history
An overhead view from the Skylab 4 Command and Service Modules of the Skylab space station cluster in Earth orbit.
Photo: NASA Johnson Space Center
What Are You Doing Today That Will Be Remembered 80 Years From Now?
On May 20-21, 1932, Amelia Earhart accomplished her goal of flying solo across the Atlantic Ocean. She took off from Newfoundland, Canada, at 7:12 p.m. on May 20, in her Lockheed Vega. Her flight was filled with dangers, from rapidly changing weather to a broken altimeter so she could not tell how high she was flying, to gasoline leaking into the cockpit.
At one point her plane dropped almost 3,000 feet (914 meters) and went into a spin (which she managed to pull out of) and flames were shooting out of the exhaust manifold. She brought her plane down on the coast of Ireland after a harrowing trip lasting 15 hours and 18 minutes The flight was the second solo flight across the Atlantic and the longest nonstop flight by a woman — 2,026 miles (3,261 kilometers) — as well as the first solo flight across the Atlantic by a woman. President Herbert Hoover awarded her the National Geographic Society Medal on June 21, 1932, for her achievement, and the U.S. Congress awarded her the Distinguished Flying Cross, the first woman to receive such an honor. Earhart’s accomplishment meant a great deal to the entire world, but especially to women, for it demonstrated that women could set their own course in aviation and other fields. (U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission)
Photo: Amelia Earhart online exhibit at Purdue University
h/t @ethanklapper
Enterprise, before the move
Photos: Avie Schneider
You won’t have Richard Nixons to kick around anymore
Nov. 6, 1972: President Nixon on television on the eve of the presidential election. Unable to photograph Nixon in person, the enterprising Times photographer shot TV screens instead. Photo: Tyrone Dukes/The New York Times
Obit of the Day (Historical): RMS Titanic (1912)
At 11:40 p.m. (ship’s time) on April 14, 1912 the Titanic scraped its hull against an iceberg. By 2:20 a.m. on April 15, the stern disappeared from view. When it was all said and done 1,513 passengers and crew lost their lives. (There were 2,224 aboard the ship, which means a survival rate of less than 32%.)
Obit of the Day will not go into the details regarding the tragic events of April 14-15, 1912 but I do recommend the following stories about the most famous ship disaster in history:
Why Women and Children Were Saved on the Titanic, but Not on the Lusitania (Daily Mail)
Experts Split on Possibility of Remains at Titanic Site (NY Times)
Titanic’s Sinking: Was It More Than Human Folly? (Huffington Post)
Remembering the Titanic’s Intrepid Bandleader (NPR)
History Lost and Found: A Letter From Titanic (NPR)
Arrival of Titanic Survivors in NYC Sets Off Free-For-All (WNYC)
The images above are various front pages from newspapers in the United States, and one from the United Kingdom, announcing the sinking of the Titanic and its tremendous loss of life. All images copyright of the paper listed, unless noted.
Top Left: New York Times, April 16, 1912; courtesy of KTAR.com
Top Right: The Daily Oklahoman, April 16, 1912; courtesy of newsok.com
Center Left: Owensboro (KY) Daily Messenger (now the Messenger-Inquirer), April 17, 1912; courtesy of commercialappeal.com
Center: Franklin Repository (Chambersburg, PA), April 16, 1912; courtesy of publicopiniononline.com
Center Right: Chicago Daily Tribune, April 16, 1912; courtesy of CORBIS.com
Bottom Left: Houston Chronicle and Herald, April 16, 1912; courtesy of chron.com
Bottom Right: Daily Mirror (London, England), April 16, 1912; courtesy of cliff1066™’s Flickr account
Stan Stearns dies; captured immortal image at JFK’s funeral
“One exposure on a roll of 36 exposures,” Stan Stearns marveled decades later. The young news photographer, in one instinctive click, captured one of the most poignant and reproduced images of the past half-century: little John F. Kennedy Jr., grief-stricken, saluting his father’s coffin as it rolled by on a caisson. (WaPo)
Astronaut Dale A. Gardner, getting his turn in the Manned Maneuvering Unit, prepares to dock with the spinning WESTAR VI satellite during the STS-51A mission in November 1984. Gardner used a large tool called the Apogee Kick Motor Capture Device to enter the nozzle of a spent WESTAR VI engine and stabilize the communications spacecraft sufficiently to capture it for return to Earth in the cargo bay of the space shuttle Discovery. (NASA)
Grace Kelly and Audrey Hepburn backstage at the 28th Academy Awards in 1956 (Beauty & Grace)
Looking Back At Iconic Iwo Jima : The Picture Show : NPR
Sixty-seven years ago today, photographer Joe Rosenthal trekked up a mountain alongside U.S. Marines and snapped this indelible scene on the Japanese island of Iwo Jima. Oddly enough, he had been rejected from military service for his poor eyesight, but today his vision is iconic.
Happy Presidents Day
The Reagans and Michael Jackson at the White House Ceremony to Launch the Campaign Against Drunk Driving, 05/14/1984 (National Archives)
Godspeed! Happy Anniversary, John Glenn!
NASA is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the first American in orbit.
Back in 1959, NASA selected John Glenn as one of the original group of seven astronauts for the Mercury program.
Three years later, he blasted off to the famous words, “Godspeed John Glenn,” becoming the first American to orbit the Earth.
John Fairfax, Who Rowed Across Oceans, Dies at 74
He crossed the Atlantic because it was there, and the Pacific because it was also there.
He made both crossings in a rowboat because it, too, was there, and because the lure of sea, spray and sinew, and the history-making chance to traverse two oceans without steam or sail, proved irresistible.
In 1969, after six months alone on the Atlantic battling storms, sharks and encroaching madness, John Fairfax, who died this month at 74, became the first lone oarsman in recorded history to traverse any ocean. (NYT)
