Browsing: June 14

A Brief History On June 14, 1954, Flag Day that year, President Eisenhower signed a joint resolution of Congress amending the 1942 Flag Code, adding the words “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance.  The president had only recently been baptized a Presbyterian and was apparently in a religious feeling when he declared “the dedication of our nation and our people to the Almighty.” Digging Deeper Not surprisingly, not everyone agreed.  The backdrop to this issue was the Cold War, the struggle of atheistic communism against “Christian” democracy and capitalism.  Eisenhower and Congress clearly wanted to differentiate us from them. Many people already were against the Pledge of Allegiance on…

A Brief History On June 14, 2002, an asteroid named 2002 MN passed within 75,000 miles of the Earth.  If that does not sound close to you, it is only a third as far away as the Moon.  (M-O-O-N, moon.)  Good old 2002 MN is what is called a “near earth asteroid,” a heavenly body that comes at least within 1.3 Astronomical Units (AU) of the Earth.  An AU is defined as the distance from the Earth to the Sun. Digging Deeper Asteroids are basically mini-planets, chunks of rock that orbit the Sun in our solar system.  Some are large…