Apollo 14 (January 31 – February 9, 1971) was the eighth crewed mission in the United States Apollo program, and the third to land on the Moon. Commander Alan Shepard (pictured), Command Module Pilot Stuart Roosa, and Lunar Module Pilot Edgar Mitchell overcame a series of malfunctions en route to the Moon that, after the failure of Apollo 13, might have resulted in a second consecutive aborted mission, and possibly the premature end of the Apollo program. Shepard and Mitchell made their lunar landing on February 5 in the Fra Mauro formation, where they undertook two extravehicular activities (EVAs or moonwalks). In Apollo 14's most famous incident, Shepard hit two golf balls he had brought with him with a makeshift club. Roosa remained in lunar orbit, where he took photographs of the Moon and performed experiments. After liftoff from the surface and a successful docking, the mission returned to Earth, splashing down safely in the Pacific Ocean.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_14

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1855:

A series of hoof-like marks were discovered in the snow in Devon, England, continuing throughout the countryside for some 40 to 100 miles (60 to 160 km). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil%27s_Footprints

1907:

More than 3,000 women in London participated in the Mud March, the first large procession organised by the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mud_March_%28suffragists%29

1971:

A 6.6 Mw earthquake struck the northern San Fernando Valley near the Los Angeles district of Sylmar, killing 65 people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1971_San_Fernando_earthquake

1996:

Breaking a seventeen-month ceasefire, the Provisional Irish Republican Army detonated a powerful truck bomb in Canary Wharf, London, killing two people and injuring more than a hundred others. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_Docklands_bombing

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

gassy: 1. Having the nature of, or containing, gas. 2. (specifically) Of a beverage: containing dissolved gas (usually carbon dioxide); fizzy. 3. (specifically) Of a person: tending to burp; burpy. 4. (specifically) Of a person: tending to release flatus; flatulent. 5. Of food or drink: tending to cause flatulence. 6. (figuratively, informal) Tending to be long-winded or wordy, especially in a boastful and vain manner. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gassy

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

When my mother was dying in the hospital, he thought, when she knew her end was coming, it was not me she looked to but someone who stood behind me: her mother or the ghost of her mother. To me she was a woman but to herself she was still a child calling to her mother to hold her hand and help her. And her own mother, in the secret life we do not see, was a child too. I come from a line of children without end.   --J. M. Coetzee https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/J._M._Coetzee