Showing posts with label History. Show all posts
Showing posts with label History. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Good luck, Mr. Gorsky!


Photo from here.
On July 20, 1969, as commander of the Apollo 11 Lunar Module, Neil Armstrong was the first person to set foot on the moon. His first words after stepping on the moon, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind," were televised to earth and heard by millions. But just before he reentered the lander, he made the enigmatic remark, "Good luck, Mr. Gorsky!"

Many people at NASA thought it was a casual remark concerning some rival Soviet cosmonaut. However, upon checking, there was no Gorsky in either the Russian or American space programs.

Over the years, many people questioned Armstrong as to what the "Good luck, Mr. Gorsky" statement meant, but Armstrong always just smiled.

On July 5, 1995, in Tampa Bay, Florida, while answering questions following a speech, a reporter brought up the 26-year-old question to Armstrong. This time he finally responded. Mr. Gorsky had died, so Neil Armstrong felt he could answer the question. In 1938 when he was a kid in a small midwest town, he was playing baseball with a friend in the backyard. His friend hit the ball, which landed in his neighbor's backyard by the bedroom windows. His neighbors were Mr. and Mrs. Gorsky. As he leaned down to pick up the ball, young Armstrong heard Mrs. Gorsky shouting at Mr. Gorsky, "Sex! You want sex?! You'll get sex when the kid next door walks on the moon!"

Source: hcomi.com

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Inspiration

This is Hiroshima, circa 1945, after the atomic bombing.



This is Hiroshima, 64 years later.


No wonder Japan is one of the most powerful countries in the world.

Photo credits from Your Bad Neighbor.

Friday, October 8, 2010

America in Color

I know this is stupid but when I was a kid, I thought that before I was born everything was in black and white.  Maybe it's the effect of watching old films in black and white too often that made me think of it that way.  Maybe it was just my make-believe story... or maybe...  whatever.


That's Huckleberry Finn with Tom Sawyer on the photo.  Not.  They're just the two persons that I thought of when I saw this photo.  It couldn't be Tom because Mark Twain published the book in 1876 while Huckleberry was published in 1884.  This was taken on June 1940.

I stumbled upon this colored picture of two boys fishing in a bayou in Schriever, Louisianna. This is just one of the few colored images that captured the effects of Depression in the US.  This photo and other photos that you will see on the link are properties of the Library of Congress.
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