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.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_8

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1818:

"Silent Night", a Christmas carol by Josef Mohr and Franz Gruber, was first performed in a church in Austria. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Night

1913:

Seventy-three people were crushed to death in a stampede after someone falsely yelled "fire" at a crowded Christmas party in Calumet, Michigan, U.S. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Hall_disaster

1953:

On New Zealand's North Island, at Tangiwai, a railway bridge was damaged by a lahar and collapsed beneath a passenger train, killing 151 people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tangiwai_disaster

2008:

The Lord's Resistance Army, a Ugandan rebel group, began attacks on several villages in Haut-Uele District, Democratic Republic of the Congo, resulting in at least 400 deaths and numerous atrocities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Christmas_massacres

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

mistletoe: 1. (countable, uncountable) Any of several hemiparasitic evergreen plants of the order Santalales with white berries that grow in the crowns of apple trees, oaks, and other trees, such as the European mistletoe (Viscum album) and American mistletoe or eastern mistletoe (Phoradendron leucarpum). 2. (uncountable) A sprig of one such plant used as a Christmas decoration, associated with the custom that a man may kiss any woman standing beneath it. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mistletoe

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

"God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good." And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas, and God bless all of you — all of you on the good Earth.   --Frank Borman https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Frank_Borman