Today's featured article
Earthrise
Apollo 8 (December 21–27, 1968) was the second crewed mission in the United States Apollo space program and the first to leave low Earth orbit, reach the Moon, orbit it, and return. The three-astronaut crew – Commander Frank Borman, Command Module Pilot Jim Lovell, and Lunar Module Pilot William Anders – were the first people to witness and photograph an Earthrise (pictured) and to escape the gravity of another celestial body. The third flight of the Saturn V rocket, the mission was also the first human spaceflight launched from the Kennedy Space Center, adjacent to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Apollo 8 took almost three days to travel to the Moon, and orbited it ten times over the course of 20 hours. In orbit, the crew made a Christmas Eve television broadcast, reading the first 10 verses from the Book of Genesis. At the time, the broadcast was the most watched TV program ever. (Full article...)
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In the news
Damage from the Sunda Strait tsunami
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- In field hockey, the World Cup concludes with Belgium defeating the Netherlands in the final.
- The Balangiga bells, taken by US Army soldiers from the Philippines in 1901 as war trophies, are repatriated.
- Nine people are killed when a high-speed train collides with a locomotive in Ankara, Turkey.