"One small step for a man…"

Operation AXIOM
Forty-four years ago to the day, 20 July 1969, "men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon." They "came in peace for all Mankind." The first Moonwalk by astronauts Neil Armstrong & "Buzz" Aldrin (Colonel Aldrin has since legally changed his name from Edwin to Buzz, but in 1969 "Buzz" was still a nickname, & thus the quotation marks) was a watershed moment in history, Man's first footfalls on a heavenly body other than our home world. Truly, "one giant leap for Mankind." Men first walked on the Moon, forty-four years ago to-day.



Science!
We live in a jaded & cynical time, one in which idealism & self-assuredness are often derided as naïveté & arrogance, but there are yet those who recognize the epochal importance of Apollo 11 & strive to see that our pioneering heritage is not forgotten: infographic-link & confirmation-link. (I am sorely disappointed in the B.B.C., specifically in "Spaceman" Jonathan Amos for ignoring completely the confirmation that the engines recovered by Mr. Bezos's expedition are indeed from Apollo 11's Saturn V.) Oceanography & astronautics bound together in one fantastic story.

"Science!"

Operation AXIOM
Sixty-nine years ago to the day, 20 July 1944, a conspiracy by officers of the Wehrmacht to assassinate Adolf Hitler & seize control of the Third Reich failed when Hitler survived the time bomb planted in the Wolf's Lair (Wolfsschanze) headquarters by Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg. It is unknown & unknowable what would have happened had the time bomb fulfilled its mission: Would the remaining organs of Nazi power have wrested the reins of power away from the conspirators? Would the United States & the United Kingdom have broken faith with the Soviet Union & made a separate peace with a post-Hitler Reich? The Führer's wrath in the wake of the 20 July Plot was terrible, with mass executions & forced suicides, a fate that befell many who were not active conspirators in the plot, such as Field Marshal Erwin Rommel. The Wehrmacht, already withering under a two-front war, was furthered weakened by the purges, hastening at least somewhat the final collapse of Hitler's "Thousand-year Reich." Perhaps more importantly, the world has unassailable proof that not all Germans were Nazis, that not all Germans were willing & eager servants of the Führer's mad ambitions. The plot to assassinate Hitler failed, sixty-nine years ago to-day.

The Rebel Black Dot Municipal Song of the Day
Mu330, "Wide Awake" (live) from Oh Yeah! (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: One could argue that "Wide Awake" isn't all that particularly about Saint Louis, but I would counter that any song by Mu330, performed in their native Saint Louis, is a fit & proper celebration of the Gateway City. Especially when Dan Potthast (A.K.A. Steve Roelle, the missing Roelle brother, at least within B.T.W.) opens the live recording of "Wide Awake" with the following:

"(Unintelligible), Saint Louis, we're Mu330, from Saint Louis, Missouri, the mighty city by the mighty Mississippi, and we'd like to thank you for coming to the rock and roll show! I want to know, Saint Louis, are you ready to rock? I mean, are you really ready to rock and roll?"