Apollo 8 was the second manned mission of the Apollo space program. Commander Frank Borman, Command Module Pilot James Lovell and Lunar Module Pilot William Anders became the first humans to travel beyond Earth orbit and into an orbit around the Moon. It was also the first manned launch of the Saturn V rocket. NASA prepared for the mission in only four months. The hardware involved had only been used a few times—the Saturn V had only launched twice before, and the Apollo spacecraft had only just finished its first manned mission, Apollo 7. However the success of the mission paved the way for the successful completion of John F. Kennedy's goal of landing on the Moon before the end of the decade. After launching on December 21, 1968, the crew took three days to travel to the Moon, which they orbited for twenty hours. While in lunar orbit they made a Christmas Eve television broadcast that is thought to be one of the most watched of all time.

Read the rest of this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_8

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1775: The American Revolutionary War began with the Battle of Lexington and Concord. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lexington_and_Concord)

1943: World War II: German troops entered the Warsaw Ghetto to round up Jews. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Ghetto)

1989: A gun turret exploded on board the USS Iowa, killing 47 sailors. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Iowa_%28BB-61%29)

1995: The Oklahoma City bombing, the largest domestic terrorist attack in the history of the United States, killed 168 people. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City_bombing)

_____________________ Wikiquote of the day:

"Patience is a necessary ingredient of genius." -- Benjamin Disraeli (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Benjamin_Disraeli)