Photo of the Day

1968.

Exuberant pop culture.

An anguished world.

Those who were alive then remember 1968 more vividly

than the years which came just before or after.

Who alive then could forget…

The Beatles.

Poster from the White Album, 1968. Richard Hamilton, artist.

Vietnam.

US Marines besieged at Khe Sanh, South Vietnam, 1968.

Laugh-In.

Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In: Goldie Hawn; Lily Tomlin; Ruth Buzzi. [IMDB photos]

The assassinations and street riots.

Robert Kennedy, Sr., announces the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to an Indianapolis rally crowd on April 4, 1968. Kennedy would be assassinated in two months. [Indiana Historical Society photo]

And Nixon.

[‘He’s the one,’ they said.]

Nixon won the presidency in 1968 with 43% of the popular vote, defeating Democrat Hubert Humphrey and third-party candidate George Wallace. Nixon's campaign slogan: "Bring us together." He didn't.

Then, in December, came the Apollo 8 mission to orbit the Moon,

another step in NASA’s effort to land men on the lunar surface.

The Apollo 8 crew rides to the launch platform. Left to right: Commander Frank Borman, Lunar Module Pilot William Anders, and Command Module Pilot James Lovell.

Putting men on the Moon required a command vehicle to orbit the Moon

while a lunar explorer brought men down to its surface and back again.

Apollo 8 would test lunar orbiting.

Far side of the Moon as seen from Apollo 8.

And, by all accounts, the mission accomplished its goal.

But most people who remember Apollo 8 don’t mention that.

Earthrise. Astronaut Bill Anders photo.

It is the photograph of the Earth,

taken as it rises above the Moon’s horizon,

that they’ll talk about.

Television transmission of interior of the space craft. Bill Anders is at the bottom .

And they’ll tell you about the astronauts’ Christmas Eve reading

of the creation story from the Book of Genesis,

which a billion people across the globe heard on live TV.

Michael Collins watches the Apollo 8 television transmission from Mission Control.

As they listened to this story of the beginning of time,

these billion people saw the Earth from the astronauts’ perspective:

The Earth as seen from Apollo 8.

Just a tiny speck of dust floating in an infinite universe.

The vastness of space made Earth’s problems seem insignificant.

And with this came a feeling of unity.

Apollo 8 crew on the USS Yorktown after splashdown, December 27, 1968. Frank Borman speaks into the microphone while William Anders and James Lovell watch.

These sentiments didn’t last, of course.

People await the return of the Apollo 8 crew.

But while they did, it was magnificent.

******************************

I’ll see you tomorrow.

— Brenda