Curated playlist
Burials at Arlington National Cemetery
- John F. KennedyJohn Fitzgerald Kennedy was shot and killed in Dallas on the 22nd of November 1963, while riding in a presidential motorcade. He was 46 years old, and had served as the 35th president of the United States for less than three years. The man…
- Pete ConradPete Conrad stepped off the Lunar Module's ladder on the 19th of November 1969, paused on the landing pad, and jumped down onto the Moon. His first words were not the solemn kind. "Whoopee! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but…
- Roger B. ChaffeeRoger Bruce Chaffee was thirty-one years old when he climbed into the Apollo 1 command module on the afternoon of the 27th of January, 1967. He was the youngest American astronaut ever assigned to a spaceflight mission, and he had never…
- Donn F. EiseleDonn Eisele spent the 27th of January 1966 recovering from shoulder surgery in a hospital. Exactly one year later, on the 27th of January 1967, three astronauts who had taken his place died in the Apollo 1 spacecraft fire. That pair of…
- Stuart RoosaStuart Allen Roosa orbited the Moon 34 times, alone, while his two crewmates walked on the surface below. No one was watching him through a television camera. No one was broadcasting his name. Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell were getting…
- Gus GrissomGus Grissom was born in Mitchell, Indiana, on the 3rd of April 1926, the son of a railroad signalman and a homemaker. His nickname came from a friend who misread "Griss" upside down on a scorecard. That accidental name would one day be…
- Henry KissingerHenry Kissinger arrived in New York City on the 5th of September, 1938, a 15-year-old Jewish refugee who had fled Germany with his family just weeks before. He had grown up in Fürth, Bavaria, watched Hitler Youth gangs beat him and his…
- John Foster DullesJohn Foster Dulles died on the 24th of May, 1959, at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, having resigned as Secretary of State just weeks earlier as bone metastasis consumed what remained of his health. He was 71. Funeral services were held…
- John Young (astronaut)John Watts Young flew in space six times, walked on the Moon, and commanded the first Space Shuttle mission. No other astronaut in history flew in four different classes of NASA spacecraft: Gemini, the Apollo command module, the Apollo…
- David Dixon PorterDavid Dixon Porter went to sea for the first time at age ten, standing watch on his father's frigate as a midshipman. By the time he died on the 13th of February, 1891, he had spent 62 years on active duty in the United States Navy, one of…
- Alfred WordenAlfred Worden was, for three days in 1971, the most isolated human being who had ever lived. While his crewmates David Scott and James Irwin walked on the Moon, Worden orbited above them alone in the command module Endeavour, at times…
- Michael Collins (astronaut)Michael Collins orbited the Moon thirty times in July 1969 and never set foot on it. While Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin descended to the Sea of Tranquillity, Collins flew alone in the command module Columbia, cut off from Earth for 48…
- Alan BeanAlan LaVern Bean was born on the 15th of March, 1932, in Wheeler, Texas, a small town in the northeastern corner of the Texas Panhandle. He died on the 26th of May, 2018, at the age of 86. Between those two dates, he became only the fourth…
- Thurgood MarshallThurgood Marshall walked into the Supreme Court as an advocate 32 times and walked out a winner 29 of those times. That record alone would make him one of the most consequential lawyers in American history. But Marshall did not stop there.…
- Caspar WeinbergerCaspar Weinberger spent six years and ten months as Secretary of Defense under Ronald Reagan, longer than anyone except Robert McNamara and, more recently, Donald Rumsfeld. That tenure placed him at the center of one of the most…
- L. Sprague de Camp"My own true name sounds more like a pseudonym than most pseudonyms do," L. Sprague de Camp said, explaining why he rarely used pen names. Over a career spanning 60 years, he wrote more than 100 books. By the 1930s and 1940s he had become…
- John SchofieldOn the 2nd of July, 1892, John McAllister Schofield awarded himself the Medal of Honor. He was Commanding General of the United States Army. The award recognized conduct in a Missouri battle in August 1861. The citation described him as…
- James IrwinJames Benson Irwin told his mother, when he was about 12 years old, that he wanted to go to the Moon and might be the first person to do so. He was wrong about the first part. On the 30th of July 1971, Irwin became the eighth human being…
- Richard F. Gordon Jr.Richard Francis Gordon Jr. was born in Seattle, Washington, on the 5th of October 1929, and he died 88 years later having orbited the Moon 45 times. Most people who know the Apollo program can name the men who walked on the lunar surface.…
- Philip SheridanPhilip Henry Sheridan was born on the 6th of March, 1831, the third of six children of Irish Catholic immigrants from Killinkere parish in County Cavan, Ireland. He grew up in Somerset, Ohio, and stood only 5 feet 5 inches tall. Abraham…
- George CrookGeorge Crook was born on the 8th of September 1828 on a farm near Taylorsville, Ohio, and by the time he died in 1890, he had fought in two of the defining conflicts of 19th-century America. He led infantry charges through waist-deep…
- Walter Bedell SmithWalter Bedell Smith signed the Italian armistice beneath an olive tree at Cassibile, Sicily, on the 3rd of September 1943. The ceremony was simple. Smith represented the Allied coalition. Across the table sat Generale di Brigata Giuseppe…
- William Babcock HazenWilliam Babcock Hazen was born on the 27th of September 1830 in West Hartford, Vermont. He moved to Ohio when he was three years old and spent his boyhood in Hiram. There he formed a close personal friendship with James A. Garfield who…
- William RosecransWilliam Starke Rosecrans was born on the 6th of September 1819, on a farm near Little Taylor Run in Kingston Township, Ohio, and by the time he died on the 11th of March 1898, his casket lay draped by the same headquarters flag that had…
- Daniel Patrick MoynihanDaniel Patrick Moynihan shined shoes at Pennsylvania Station as a boy during the Great Depression, in the same building he would later spend decades fighting to restore as a United States Senator. That arc, from the floors of Hell's…
- James E. WebbJames Edwin Webb walked out of NASA headquarters for the last time on the 7th of October 1968. It was his sixty-second birthday. He was leaving the agency just days before the first crewed flight of the Apollo program got underway. He had…
- Grace HopperGrace Hopper hung a clock on her office wall that ran counterclockwise, ticking backward through every meeting. "Humans are allergic to change," she once said. "They love to say, 'We've always done it this way.' I try to fight that. That's…