On this day 57 years ago, a helicopter like this one participated in the Pacific Ocean recovery of the Apollo 11 crew.

I have now made my first trip to San Diego, CA, visiting an air and space museum and the USS Midway Museum. Being close to the Pacific coast on a balmy day is a soul-lifting experience and an educational one for a historian like myself.

I also had the good fortune to visit the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley today. No matter one's political beliefs, it is located in a beautiful location and is a fertile place to learn about not only the president, but all American history via the America 250 exhibit.

The Autry Museum of the American West does a great job of tying Los Angeles, CA into the history of social justice on the North American continent, from its founding in 1781 through the anti-ICE protests of 2025.

Today I made my first trip to Burbank, California and came across this display on The Right Stuff. The props that one can see at Warner Brothers studios date back to the early days of film.

As a spaceflight historian, I was also struck by this scene in Tomorrowland because this is where the Rocket to the Moon and then Mission to Mars attractions operated from the 1950s to the 1980s. How many people who contributed to the space program were inspired by this Southern Cal. attraction?

Soarin' Across America is an amazing way to take in a 250th national birthday, capping a weekend that also featured a tribute to the armed services and a fireworks extravaganza at Disneyland.

Happy Independence Day from Anaheim, California! My trip has been a great chance to reflect on Walt Disney's vision and on Abraham Lincoln's as well, via the words of his 1838 Lyceum address.

During this Juneteenth weekend, I was able to attend a church service and visit an African-American Museum in Waterloo, Iowa where I grew up. The railroad industry was critical in attracting economic opportunity to the Hawkeye state during the early twentieth century.

Just enjoyed an afternoon at the virtual reality experience Titanic: Echoes From the Past. Highly recommended!

Pleased to finish another semester of U.S. History survey teaching with a guest presentation from Space Center Houston. The talk went from Jules Verne's 1865 novel through the Artemis II mission of last month.

One of my end-of-semester tasks is to grade essays that analyze a book I have assigned. This semester I have assigned my students the book Ordinary Heroes, a memoir from the first FDNY chief to enter the North Tower of the World Trade Center on 9/11. I can tell the book resonated with many of them.

I am ready for launch with this shirt I bought at Titusville last month. Today I feel a bit like a football player running out of the tunnel on Super Bowl Sunday, as apprehension mixes with excitement.

If you are in the Atlanta area, I encourage you to view Space Explorers: The Infinite. It provides a VR tour of the International Space Station in four chapters and astronauts have called it the closest analog to the low Earth orbit experience.

Project Hail Mary contains some of the best visuals I have ever seen in a spaceflight movie, both from inside the vehicle and of a planetary atmosphere. The plot may be far fetched but the photography, acting, and music are all first rate in my opinion.

Today marks 100 years since Robert Goddard launched the first liquid fueled rocket. What I find remarkable about his story is that no less a publication than the New York Times tried to discourage his visions of lunar travel, only to issue a retraction in July 1969.

If you have not been to the American Space Museum in Titusville, FL, I highly recommend the visit. During this Women's History Month, I was especially pleased to see an entire room devoted to all 84 women who have orbited Earth thus far. Many of them are admirers of this museum, as am I.

This spaceflight historian just witnessed a launch for the very first time. The Falcon 9 soared into a cloudy sky this morning from Pad 40, shortly before the beginning of my second day at the KSC Visitor Complex.

Today I met one of the legends of the Space Shuttle era, a veteran of four missions including two to the Hubble Space Telescope and one to the International Space Station. Steve Smith is now a great public ambassador for the Kennedy Space Center.

Made it to the Magic Kingdom today during this 250th anniversary year of American independence.

I am in Pensacola, Florida for my spring break and developed a much greater appreciation for the city's history during my time at this museum.

International Women's Day is an opportunity to remember this letter from Abigail Adams to her husband, sent 250 years ago this month. During a war for independence, she remained strong for her family and the nation soon to be born.

Pleased to see Jon Meacham and Patrick Allitt at the Atlanta History Center tonight. Having already read four of Meacham's books, I look forward to reading his new anthology American Struggle. In his words, "there is no happily ever after" in our democracy.

My first year as a Georgia resident has given me a great chance to reflect on the life of Martin Luther King Jr. The museums and monuments in Atlanta particularly are fertile places to think about human rights and their history.

I now have just the sweater to commemorate one of my longtime favorite space missions, Apollo 8. When the Artemis II crew lifts off, I will wear this while Reid, Victor, Christina, and Jeremy embark on their own lunar voyage.

I just received these copies of Life Magazine from 1939, if any fellow U.S. History teachers are interested. I am intrigued by the optimism the 1939 World's Fair gave to the American people during a time of depression and looming war in Europe and Asia. This was a focus of the magazine that year.

Pleased to visit the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame in Knoxville, Tennessee today. For those of us who teach U.S. History, focusing on women's sports can be a useful way to illustrate societal expectations and how they have shifted over time.

I also recommend these two books for thorough but fairly compact overviews of Marine Corps and Air Force history, respectively.

Yesterday's trip to Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park gave me a newfound appreciation for the consequences incurred in frontal attacks against well entrenched defenders. General William Sherman's forces tragically learned this lesson on June 27, 1864.

Last night, I enjoyed a live orchestra performance of one of my favorite childhood movies: Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. Thank you to Susie Seiter and all of the performers! #HATM