November 9 · This Day in America
At 7 a.m. at Cape Kennedy, five F-1 engines light at once and the ground refuses to hold still. Apollo 4 climbs on 7.5 million pounds of thrust, the tallest rocket ever built leaving Earth for the first time, uncrewed, every stage tested in a single flight. Miles away at the press site the shockwave rattles ceiling tiles and journalists grab their consoles. Scientists later rank the sound among the loudest things humans have ever made. The machine works. All of it. The Moon, which had been a destination only in speeches, is suddenly an engineering problem with an answer. Twenty months later, men ride the same kind of rocket to the Sea of Tranquility. It started here, with a roar that you could feel in your chest a town away.
Source: www.nasa.gov
Also on this day · 1965
At dusk a relay the size of a light switch trips in Ontario, and within minutes 30 million people across the Northeast lose power. Eight hundred thousand are trapped in New York's subways. The city famous for its hard edges does not riot. Strangers light candles in store windows, walk neighbors home, direct traffic by flashlight. Police make 76 arrests all night. For thirteen dark hours, New York is gentler than usual.
Source: www.history.com
“The whole world could see the awesome sight of the first launch of what is now the largest rocket ever flown.”President Lyndon B. Johnson, 1967