40 years ago today, 16 July 1969 at 14:32 (BST), the Apollo 11 Saturn V rocket was launched.


According to Wikipedia:

the Apollo 11 mission was was the fifth human spaceflight of Project Apollo and the third human voyage to the Moon.

It carried Mission Commander Neil Alden Armstrong, Command Module Pilot Michael Collins, and Lunar Module Pilot Edwin Eugene 'Buzz' Aldrin, Jr.

Four days later, on July 20th, Armstrong and Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the Moon, while Collins orbited above.

The mission fulfilled President John F. Kennedy's goal of reaching the moon by the end of the 1960s.

On May 25, 1961, he'd addressed a joint session of Congress and stated: "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth."

On May 12th, 1962, he gave a public speech in which he said: "We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard."


Visit the interactive website WeChooseTheMoon.org created by JFK Presidential Library & Museum to experience a real-time recreation of the historic lunar mission.

Big Ben was started on May 31, 1859 making the clock 150 years old today. According to Wikipedia, "Big Ben is the nickname for the great bell of the clock at the north-eastern end of the Palace of Westminster in London, and is often extended to refer to the clock or the clock tower as well. Big Ben is the largest four-faced chiming clock and the third-tallest free-standing clock tower in the world."


Here's an amazingphoto gallery. You can visit Big Ben's official site. On it, you can take interactive virtual tour where you can spin the image 360 degrees by using your mouse or the buttons underneath, jump to different rooms in the tour using the map and images on the right-hand side, and select highlighted objects in the rooms for more information on interesting features. There's even a game to play called "Race Against Chime".


Some interesting facts and statistics:

General
Dimensions: over 96 metres and 12 metres square
Steps to belfry: 334
Steps to lantern (the Ayrton Light): 393
Amount of stone used: 850 cubic metres
Amount of bricks used: 2600 cubic metres
Number of floors: 11

Clock dials
Number of clock dials: 4
Clock dials diameter: 7m
Length of hour figures: 60cm
Clock dial frames: cast iron
Glass in each clock dial: 312 pieces of pot opal glass
Illumination of each dial: 28 energy efficient bulbs at 85 watt each
Lifetime of each energy efficient bulb: 60,000 hours

Minute hands
Material: copper sheet
Weight: 100kg, including counterweights
Length: 4.2m
Distance travelled by minute hands per year: equivalent of 190km

Hour hands
Material: gun metal
Weight: 300kg including counterweights
Length: 2.7m
The hour figure of 4 o’clock is shown by the Roman numeral IV, rather than the usual IIII on other clocks.

Mechanism
Clock mechanism frame material: cast iron girder frame
Clock mechanism dimensions: 4.7m long and 1.4m wide
Clock mechanism weight: 5 tonnes
Pendulum length: 4.4m
Pendulum weight: 310kg
Duration of pendulum beat: 2 seconds

Pendulum adjustment: pre-decimal pennies are used to regulate the clock mechanism. Adding one penny causes the clock to gain two-fifths of a second in 24 hours.

'The Double Three-legged Gravity Escapement', designed by Edmund Beckett Denison MP, compensates for outside pressure (like the wind) on the clock hands and is crucial for accuracy.

Pendulum bob
Pendulum bob weight: 203kg
Material: concentric tubes of steel and zinc

Clock weights
Number of clock weights: 3
Combined weight: nearly 2.5 tonnes