July 1969

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That was forty years ago this month!

I recall only July 20 event, but more on that later.

July 1, 1969 — Charles Philip Arthur George (21), the son of Queen Elizabeth II, becomes Prince of Wales. “A Popular Young Lad,” somebody or other called him back then.

July 5, 1969 — The UN Security Council unanimously — that means the US was included, eh? — censures Israel for all measures taken to change the status of Arab East Jerusalem.

July 7, 1969 — Canada’s House of Commons approves equality of French and English (at least as the two official languages of Canada).

July 15, 1969 — The Wallkill Zoning Board of Appeals bans the Woodstock Festival on the basis that the planned portable toilets would not meet town code.

July 16, 1969 — Men blast off for the moon.

July 17, 1969 — The New York Times publishes a correction of an editorial in one of their 1920 editions in which they had scathingly taken the rocket pioneer Robert H. Goddard to task for asserting that rockets could function in a vacuum and might even make it to the moon. β€œHe only seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools,” the editorial said of Goddard.

July 18, 1969 — Senator Edward “Ted” Kennedy and Mary Jo Kopechne go on a midnight drive on Chappaquiddick Island. He returns alive; she doesn’t.

July 20, 1969 — With the Apollo 11 mission, the United States succeeds in putting man on the moon for the first time (as far as we know).

July 24, 1969 — The three Apollo 11 astronauts land in the ocean, safely back from their historic moon mission.

Yeah, July 1969 was quite the month. In my research of it, I came across this New York Times piece: A Year to Remember 40 Years Ago. Interestingly, the sad event of July 18 didn’t get included. It seems they chose to ignore Mary Jo Kopechne.

Mary Jo Kopechne, 'friend' to Senator Ted Kennedy

Time magazine -- July 11, 1969I also came across an article by Billy Graham in the July 11, 1969, issue of Time magazine: The Sickness of Sodom. It was already bad back then! Question now is, would they publish another article like it today?

OK, I said I only remember the July 20 event. I was two months shy of my tenth birthday. My folks were missionaries in Cd. Obregón, Sonora, Mexico. So were Maynard and Helen Headings and their family. My recollection is of Dad and me going over to the Headings’ and then going with Maynard and the boys over to one of their neighbors’ to watch the grand event unfold on a small black-and-white TV set. I remember seeing this happen “live” (or was it in some Hollywood studio? :mrgreen: ):

Apollo 11 -- astronaut stepping on the moon

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