At 10:56 p.m. EDT, astronaut Neil Armstrong, 240,000 miles from
Earth, speaks these words to more than a billion people listening
at home: “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”      

Buzz Aldrin, lunar module pilot, descends the
steps of the Lunar Module ladder.

Buzz Aldrin salutes the deployed United States flag.

Communications satellite Telstar 1 was launched atop a Thor-Delta rocket on July 10, 1962. It successfully relayed through space the
first television pictures, telephone calls, and telegraph images,
and provided the first live transatlantic television feed. Telstar 2
launched May 7, 1963. Telstar 1 and 2, though no longer
functional ,still orbit the Earth today.

On June 27, 1950, President Harry S. Truman (above) announced
that he is ordering U.S. air and naval forces to South Korea to
aid the democratic nation in repulsing an invasion by communist
North Korea. The United States was undertaking the major military
operation, he explained, to enforce a United Nations resolution
calling for an end to hostilities, and stop the spread of communism
in Asia. In addition to ordering U.S. forces to Korea, Truman also 
deployed the U.S. 7th Fleet to Formosa (Taiwan) to guard against
invasion by communist China and ordered an acceleration of
military aid to French forces fighting communist guerrillas in
Vietnam.

U.S. troops arrive at the dockside in Pusan, 6 August 1950.

On June 22, 1944, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed
the G.I. Bill, an unprecedented act of legislation designed to
compensate returning members of the armed services—known
as G.I.s—for their efforts in World War II.

As the last of its sweeping New Deal reforms, Roosevelt’s
administration created the G.I. Bill (officially the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944) hoping to avoid a relapse into the
Great Depression after the war ended.

CAMILLE BOHANNON