What's on your mind today?

[xSilverPhinx]

With the 50th anniversary of the moon landing coming up tomorrow (it's already the 20th in Aus, but that's time zones for you), I was excited to receive in the mail this week my "mini museum" which contains a very small piece of the foil that covered the Apollo 11 command module.  This foil was mostly burnt off during re-entry and some of the engineers who decommissioned the capsule were given sections of what remained.  One of these auctioned his piece and it is some of that which I have in my hot little hand.  I could open the acrylic box and touch it, but it is very fragile so I'm happy to just look on my tiny piece of history! 

That's awesome!  I wish I had such a relic.

[Bad Penny II]

With the 50th anniversary of the moon landing coming up tomorrow (it's already the 20th in Aus, but that's time zones for you)

That's bothered me a bit since I was 7 or 6 and 364 days, or 7 and a day, I'm not sure.  Anyway my birthday is July 20 but local time the men landed on the moon on the 21st. I don't think this kind of distinction is made for any other historical happening.
But well done us, we've made it around old Sol another time.
Yes, well done us.

[Bluenose]

For those that asked

https://photos.app.goo.gl/HN3fULXkRpGEsdYS7

Let me know if this doesn't work

[xSilverPhinx]

For those that asked

https://photos.app.goo.gl/HN3fULXkRpGEsdYS7

Let me know if this doesn't work

It works!

[hermes2015]

Thanks, I could see it.

[Magdalena]

Ah, yes, there it is! I see it.
Thank you for sharing it with us.

[Bluenose]

Silver, Hermes and Mags, I know it's not very big, but that's not the point (not that you guys said that it was).  I can't believe I now own a part of that wonderful machine that did so much all those years ago.  I am over the moon about it.  (Pun intended)

[xSilverPhinx]

Silver, Hermes and Mags, I know it's not very big, but that's not the point (not that you guys said that it was).  I can't believe I now own a part of that wonderful machine that did so much all those years ago.  I am over the moon about it.  (Pun intended)

Just because it's a small piece of history, doesn't make is any less cooler. 

[Dark Lightning]

That is actually a pretty amazing bit of history. I don't know that If I got a big chunk that I would part with any. It could only be that size once.

[Magdalena]

Bluenose, when you used the words:

... "mini museum" and "a very small" piece of the foil

I had a feeling it was small.


I still think it's amazing. 

Edit: Fixed spelling.

[Essie Mae]

I saw a play called 'Small Island' on Saturday, based on the book, which I have never read. The language in places was shocking; hearing insults aimed at the people of the West Indies who came over on ships such as The Windrush. I can just about remember the 'No Blacks, no Irish' notices on lodging houses, or maybe I've just seen it in films. I don't know why any of them wanted to stay here after the way they were treated. I haven't heard those insults in years.  I feel quite haunted by it. 

[Icarus]

Relax Essie.  You are in no way responsible for the shabby behavior of your predecessors.  If you need some solace about the way the Brits behaved a few generations back, then consider how the Romans of earlier times treated their "lessers"  They fed them to the lions.

My nation is equally culpable.  For a lot of years we kept Africans as slaves.  In the early twentieth century we treated immigrant Irish, Italians, Slavs, Chinese, and a few others as if they were dirt.  I am not proud of that history but neither you nor I  had anything to do with the things that happened in the past.  One of our founding documents declares that; All men are created equal.   However for some length of time black people were regarded as only three fifths human. 


 

[Dark Lightning]

Relax Essie.  You are in no way responsible for the shabby behavior of your predecessors.  If you need some solace about the way the Brits behaved a few generations back, then consider how the Romans of earlier times treated their "lessers"  They fed them to the lions.

My nation is equally culpable.  For a lot of years we kept Africans as slaves.  In the early twentieth century we treated immigrant Irish, Italians, Slavs, Chinese, and a few others as if they were dirt.  I am not proud of that history but neither you nor I  had anything to do with the things that happened in the past.  One of our founding documents declares that; All men are created equal.   However for some length of time black people were regarded as only three fifths human. 

...and that 3/5 of a person was used to give slave owners more voting power; it sure wasn't to avail the black people of any benefit, since they were still slaves.

My (namesake) family's ancestors immigrated to Canada from France in the 1880s and filtered down into the US later. My ancestors possibly "owned" slaves in Europe. I accept no guilt for what ancestors did. I know people who think that that is the case. "Sins of the (X8) grandfather", I guess.

[Tank]

I have no doubt I have both slave owners and abolitionists in my ancestory.

[Dark Lightning]

Guilt and pride at the same time. Sounds like religion. 

Point taken, though.