Today marks 50 years since a global audience watched Neil Armstrong take the first human steps on the moon. Many still proclaim it as one of the highest achievements of human ingenuity. Technological advances from the Apollo program sparked innovations from everything from rockets and materials to computers and nonperishable foods. Even its timing couldn’t have been any better. With over 600 million viewers, it united people—if only for a brief moment—during one of the most turbulent eras in American history. By the time Apollo 11 touched down in 1969, the Cold War was going full force between the United States and the Soviet Union. The U.S. was mired in the Vietnam Conflict just one year after the Tet Offensive, a long-recognized turning point in the war. Backlash from the war led to the “hippie” counterculture that was gaining steam with preparations under way for the Woodstock music festival in August 1969. Every sector of the U.S. was in flux. The civil rights movement was still reeling from the 1968 assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy. The women’s liberation movement was in the midst of an increasingly emotional abortion discussion that led to Roe v. Wade in […]
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