Charles Duke (born October 3, 1935) is a former astronaut, United States Air Force (USAF) officer and test pilot. As the lunar module pilot of Apollo 16 in 1972, he became (and remains) the tenth and youngest person to walk on the Moon. A 1957 graduate of the United States Naval Academy who joined the USAF, Duke completed his advanced flight training at Moody Air Force Base, and became a fighter pilot. He graduated from the Aerospace Research Pilot School in September 1965, and stayed on as an instructor. In April 1966, he was one of nineteen men selected for NASA's fifth group of astronauts. As a CAPCOM for Apollo 11, the first crewed landing on the Moon, in July 1969, his distinctive Southern drawl became familiar to audiences around the world. Duke was backup lunar module pilot for Apollo 13. On the Apollo 16 mission, Duke and John Young landed at the Descartes Highlands and conducted three excursions. He retired from NASA in 1976, and from the USAF in 1986 with the rank of brigadier general.
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Duke
_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
1792:
Spanish forces departed Valdivia, Chile, to suppress the Huilliche uprising. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huilliche_uprising_of_1792
1951:
The First Battle of Maryang-san, widely regarded as one of the Australian Army's greatest accomplishments during the Korean War, began. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Battle_of_Maryang-san
1981:
The hunger strike by Irish Republican Army prisoners at HM Prison Maze in Belfast ended after seven months and ten deaths (memorial pictured). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_Irish_hunger_strike
1991:
Nadine Gordimer became the first South African to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadine_Gordimer
_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
festschrift: A collection of articles, essays, etc., published together as a memorial or tribute to an academic or some other respected person. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/festschrift
___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
The whole conviction of my life now rests upon the belief that loneliness, far from being a rare and curious phenomenon, peculiar to myself and to a few other solitary men, is the central and inevitable fact of human existence. --Thomas Wolfe https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Wolfe