You learn something new every day

I consider myself to be fairly knowledgeable about history, especially when it concerns topics that are of interest to me.  So imagine my surprise when I realized that today, 12 April, is the anniversary of 3 very important events concerning topics that I am quite interested in--but had no idea they all fell on this date:  1), the beginning of the American Civil War (1861); 2), the first human spaceflight (1961); and 3), the first flight of the space shuttle (1981).

Why are these things important?

I've always believed that you have to know the past to understand the present; this is not a novel or new concept, and certainly nothing that I thought of myself, but it is still true.  More Americans were killed in the Civil War than in any other armed conflict this nation has been involved in--620,000, with an untold number of civilians killed during the conflict.  To put this in perspective, approximately 400,000 Americans were killed in World War II.  On this date in 1861, the Confederacy opened fire on Ft. Sumter in South Carolina, beginning a struggle that could have (and should have) ended very quickly, but dragged on for 4 years.  In reading histories of the Civil War, it is frustrating to me to discover the mistakes and miscues on the battlefields of the 19th century.  We take it for granted today that our military units deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan have access to communications and supply lines that make it possible for them to accomplish their missions; it can be frustrating to read about a Civil War battle where just one set of radios would have turned the tide for one side or the other.

As for the other two events, well, I believe that humans in general are born with an adventurous spirit; what's over the next rise, the next river, the horizon?  Yuri Gagarin was an incredibly intrepid individual to get into that rocket and leave Earth behind.  Imagine what he saw!  In the Information Age and with TV shows like Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica, not to mention all the real-space footage we can see from the space station and space shuttle flights, I think alot of us have started taking space flight for granted.  Put yourself in Gagarin's boots for a minute and think about the emotions he must have felt as the first person to see our planet from orbit!  What an experience.  And let's not forget the space shuttle--Columbia went into space on this date on 1981, heralding a new era in human spaceflight.  Endeavour will fly later this month (her last mission to space); prior to this launch, she has flown 24 missions, orbited the Earth 4,429 times, and traveled 103,149,636 miles.

Just some food for thought.  And now you've learned something today too.