Apollo 12 Walks the Moon: Third and Fourth Humans Land
Pete Conrad nearly ruined the Moon landing by laughing. Stepping onto the lunar surface, the 5'6" Navy commander hollered "Whoopee!" — a deliberate joke aimed at scientists who'd claimed the first words would be psychologically revealing. But Conrad and Alan Bean had a mission beyond footprints. They walked to the Surveyor 3 probe, dormant since 1967, and cut pieces off it. Back on Earth, researchers found bacteria inside the camera. Life had survived three years in space. Nobody planned that discovery. Nobody expected it. And nobody's fully explained it since.
November 19, 1969
57 years ago
Key Figures & Places
What Else Happened on November 19
Pope Urban VIII consecrated the current Saint Peter’s Basilica, finalizing a construction project that spanned over a century and involved masters like Michelan…
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Urban II didn't command kings. He commanded crowds. At Clermont, he preached to thousands gathered in an open field — the church couldn't hold them — and report…
Christopher Columbus went ashore on an island he named San Juan Bautista during his second voyage, claiming it for the Spanish Crown. The island, later renamed …
A prisoner known only by a number died in the Bastille on November 19, 1703, after decades of imprisonment during which his face was always concealed behind a m…
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