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Today in 1936 is the official date on which the Spanish Civil War began, but see July 22, for the unofficial date on which World War Two began.
Apollo 11 landed the first men on the moon, at 4:17 pm, today in 1969.
This intrigues me - where was it 4:17pm? At Cape Canveral on the east coast of America, where the expedition was being monitored? Or at the Kennedy Space Centre in California where the return was being arranged? And what time was it on the moon? Which is to ask: how do time-zones work in space? The same as on Earth, with one-hour shifts every fifteen degrees of longitude? What time would it have been then, in moon-time, when they landed? And do they have lunar time-zones, so that it might be noon at the Ocean of Storms even while it is midnight at the Sea of Serenity, the Mare Tranquillitatis, where "the eagle" actually landed - located at 0° 4'5" N latitude, 23° 42'28" E longitude. But are those lunar map-locations, or a transferral of Earth ones?
And while we are musing in the empty space of our knowledge, fearful that it will end as a black hole, Viking 1 landed on Mars, today in 1976. Did they time it deliberately, to make an anniversary with the moon-landing? And what hour, and what minute please? What longitude, what latitude, what time-zone? I need to know!
Chief Sitting Bull, whose real name was name was Tatanka Iyotake, surrendered, today in 1881. The head of the Hunkpapa Lakota tribe of the Teton Sioux in what the illegal white European invaders had named Dakota. Arthur Kopit tells the story of the last days of the Sioux in his play "Indians" - we performed it in my final year at Prep school; I was Chief Red Cloud.
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