APUSH – War of 1812 DBQ
Reply
Category Archives: APUSH
APUSH – Essay Rubric
APUSH – Syllabus
Seabiscuit
Apollo 13
Cinderella Man
World Trade Center
Challenger Disaster @ 25
Yesterday marked the 25-year anniversary of the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. There are few events from that season of my life that made such an indelible impression on me. I think I’m still searching for the reason why.
I was in 6th grade and had asked to use the restroom when a friend stopped me in the hallway and said: “The space shuttle exploded”
I had no way of comprehending what that meant – nothing like that had ever happened before.
That was until I went outside and saw this in the eastern sky:
We huddled in a classroom for the rest of the day watching the footage, heartbroken and dumbfounded. It was a different age then, a less cynical age. We deeply cared about what had happened to those people, and were desperately trying to process it.
Somehow augmenting the depth and scope of the tragedy was the fact that Christa McAuliffe, a teacher from New Hampshire, was selected to be part of the seven-member crew.
She had won the NASA Teacher in Space Project, and had been training for over a year. She was new to teaching, but I think somehow reminded me of my mother.
The same day of the tragedy, President Reagan delivered these remarks from the White House:
I think I’ll always measure Presidents by his standard. This speech is still remarkably affecting.
In it, he quotes the poem “High Flight” by WWII aviator John Gillespie Magee, Jr:
“Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth –
Put out my hand and touched the Face of God.”
These words had the strange effect of inspiring and comforting me all at the same time. It seems that all great words in the face of tragedy do that.
At my earliest opportunity (about 10 yrs. later), I purchased this specially commissioned license plate:
Many of the feelings I had in those days are rushing back as I saw an article in my now-hometown newspaper.
I’ll give that article the last word:
Marcia Dunn – AP
“For many, no single word evokes as much pain.
Challenger.
A quarter-century later, images of the exploding space shuttle still signify all that can go wrong with technology and the sharpest minds. The accident on Jan. 28, 1986 — a scant 73 seconds into flight, nine miles above the Atlantic for all to see — remains NASA’s most visible failure.
It was the world’s first high-tech catastrophe to unfold on live TV. Adding to the anguish was the young audience: Schoolchildren everywhere tuned in that morning to watch the launch of the first schoolteacher and ordinary citizen bound for space, Christa McAuliffe.
She never made it.
McAuliffe and six others on board perished as the cameras rolled, victims of stiff O-ring seals and feeble bureaucratic decisions.
It was, as one grief and trauma expert recalls, “the beginning of the age when the whole world knew what happened as it happened.”
