On this day a half cen­tu­ry ago, Mer­cury Astro­naut John Glenn became the first Amer­i­can to orbit the Earth. On the morn­ing of Feb­ru­ary 20, 1962, an anx­ious nation watched as Glenn climbed into his cramped Friend­ship 7 space cap­sule and was pro­pelled by an Atlas 6 rock­et high above the atmos­phere. He cir­cled the Earth three times before re-enter­ing the atmos­phere and splash­ing down in the Atlantic Ocean. As the vet­er­an space pro­gram reporter John Noble Wil­ford wrote last week in The New York Times, “Per­haps no oth­er spaceflight–all 4 hours, 55 min­utes and 23 sec­onds of it–has been fol­lowed by so many with such par­a­lyz­ing appre­hen­sion.”

You can get a sense of the dra­ma and excite­ment of that day by watch­ing the news­reel above, and by read­ing Wil­ford’s inter­est­ing piece in the Times. Also, NASA has put togeth­er an inter­ac­tive online fea­ture on the mis­sion. At a time when Amer­i­ca’s manned space pro­gram depends on Russ­ian space­craft to car­ry astro­nauts to and from the Inter­na­tion­al Space Sta­tion, it’s all the more poignant to look back on the day 50 years ago when Glenn became, as writer Tom Wolfe put it, “the last true nation­al hero Amer­i­ca has ever had.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

“First Orbit”: Cel­e­brat­ing 50th Anniver­sary of Yuri Gagaran’s Space Flight

It’s more than a theme park. It’s an icon­ic Amer­i­can insti­tu­tion, a sym­bol of an imag­ined Gold­en Age in Amer­i­can his­to­ry, and a site of many good child­hood mem­o­ries. We’re talk­ing about Dis­ney­land. Con­struc­tion began in July 1954 in rur­al Ana­heim, Cal­i­for­nia, and the park opened but a year lat­er in July 1955. And, thanks to this new­ly-cleaned up piece of footage, you can see Walt’s “mag­i­cal park” just a short two years lat­er. The babies in the strollers are like­ly grand­par­ents today. But the park still looks much the same. Dis­ney His­to­ry Insti­tute offers more com­men­tary on the clip here.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Walt Dis­ney Presents the Super Car­toon Cam­era

How Walt Dis­ney Car­toons Are Made

Disney’s Oscar-Win­ning Adven­tures in Music

Don­ald Duck Wants You to Pay Your Tax­es (1943)

Otto von Bis­mar­ck (1815 – 1898) — he was a tow­er­ing 19th cen­tu­ry polit­i­cal fig­ure, the Iron Chan­cel­lor who uni­fied Ger­many under Prus­si­a’s lead­er­ship, and the man who invent­ed Realpoli­tik. And now, thanks to Thomas Edis­on’s wax cylin­der, you can hear the voice of this dis­tant his­tor­i­cal fig­ure. The recent­ly-dis­cov­ered record­ing was made back in 1889, when Edis­on’s assis­tant, Theo Wange­mann, head­ed to Europe to attend the World’s Fair in Paris, then trav­eled to Bis­mar­ck­’s cas­tle in Friedrich­sruh (near Ham­burg). Bis­mar­ck­’s wife urged the Chan­cel­lor to make the record­ing, and he went along with it, record­ing lines from the songs In Good Old Colony Times and Gaudea­mus igi­tur; the poem Als Kaiser Rot­bart lobe­sam; and France’s nation­al anthem, the Mar­seil­laise. (The last pick was kind of odd.) It con­cludes with the Chan­cel­lor offer­ing some words to his son Her­bert.

You can lis­ten to the audio above or here (be sure to crank up the vol­ume!) and read the full tran­script below the jump. Also don’t miss some vin­tage record­ings of oth­er 19th cen­tu­ry leg­ends: William Glad­stone, Walt Whit­man, Pyotr Tchaikovsky, and Alfred Lord Ten­nyson. Plus find Euro­pean his­to­ry cours­es in our big col­lec­tion of Free Cours­es Online.

In good old colony times,
When we lived under the King,
Three rogu­ish chaps fell into mishaps
Because they could not sing.

Als Kaiser Rot­bart lobe­sam
Zum heil’­gen Land gezo­gen kam,
Da mußt er mit dem from­men Heer
Durch ein Gebirge wüst und leer.

Gaudea­mus igi­tur,
juvenes dum sumus.
Post jucun­dam juven­tutem,
post molestam senec­tutem
nos habebit humus.

Allons enfants de la Patrie
Le jour de gloire est arrivé
Con­tre nous de la tyran­nie
L’é­ten­dard sanglant est levé.

Treibe alles in Maßen und Sit­tlichkeit, namentlich das Arbeit­en, dann aber auch das Essen, und im Übri­gen ger­ade auch das Trinken.
Rat eines Vaters an seinen Sohn.

When good Emper­or Red­beard
Was jour­ney­ing to the Holy Land,
He had to go with his pious army
Through moun­tains des­o­late and emp­ty.

Let us rejoice, there­fore,
While we are young.
After a pleas­ant youth
After a trou­bling old age
The earth will have us.

Arise, chil­dren of the Father­land,
The day of glo­ry has arrived! Against us of tyran­ny
The bloody ban­ner is raised.

Do every­thing in mod­er­a­tion and moral­i­ty, name­ly work, but then also eat­ing, and apart from that espe­cial­ly drink­ing.
Advice of a father to his son.