It just looked like a pile of paper from the outside. And I guess because it was paper, it sort of weighed a lot. But the plastic bag I used to haul all that paper to the curb had probably previously hauled groceries from a local store so it could take the weight. And if you looked inside that bag, you’d have seen a number of famous people – John F. Kennedy, Winston Churchill and the Apollo 11 astronauts – all captured on the front pages of old newspapers with headlines such as:

“Kennedy Assassinated,” lamented the Globe and Mail in 1963.

“Churchill Mourned,” announced the Toronto Star in 1965.

“Man Steps On The Moon,” read the Toronto Telegram on July 21 1969. And the newsprint of the Tely, some of you will remember, was coloured pink! (more…)

I think after the assassination of JFK, it’s the most significant “Where were you when…?” event in our lifetimes. It was the time – as baby-boom teenagers and their parents – we stayed glued to our TV sets all night on July 20, 1969, to watch U.S. astronauts land their Apollo 11 module on the moon and then watched former test pilot Neil Armstrong take those famous steps and speak to the world.

“That’s one small step for a man,” he said. “One giant leap for mankind.”

Yuri Gagarin remarked in space " God" — Yuri Gagarin remarked in space, "I don't see any God up here."

In truth, however, the race for space began 50 years ago this week when Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human being to be catapulted into Earth orbit aboard Vostok 1, a space capsule about as big as the Russian-built Lada.

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Ted Barris

author | journalist

Posts with the one small step tag

Curb-onomics

Week of space shots