The balls didn’t actually go for miles. Shepard later gave his estimate to be about 200 to 400 yards. Considering that he swung with one hand in a suit that restricted movement, with a rigged six iron, it wasn’t a bad shot. The golf shot was unplanned and unauthorized. Shepard smuggled the golf club head inside his uniform.

The Apollo 14 mission was the first mission after the failed Apollo 13 mission. Alan Shepard along with Edgar Mitchell became the 5th and 6th man to walk on the moon. Stuart Roosa orbited the moon in the Command Module.

The mission lasted from January 31 to February 9, 1971. Shepard and Mitchell spent 33 1/2 hours on the moon. Nine hours and 23 minutes was spent outside of the Lunar Capsule.

This was Shepard’s second and final time in space. Ten years earlier on May 5, 1961, he became the first American to travel into space when he piloted Freedom 7. That flight was a sub-orbital flight which carried him to an altitude of 116 statute miles. With the Apollo 14 mission he became the only astronaut from Project Mercury to reach the moon. At 47, he also was the oldest to walk on the moon.

For Shepard the mission was a personal triumph. He had been grounded from 1964 to 1968 from Ménière’s disease, a condition in which fluid pressure builds up in the inner ear. An operation performed in 1968 was able to remedy the problem and he was allowed to fly again. Even though Alan B. Shepard never intended to be a hero, he was one.

The word was first used by Horace Walpole in a letter dated January 28, 1754 to Horace Mann, an Englishman living at the time in Florence. This is not the Horace Mann who was a American educator.

Walpole had read a Persian fairy tale, called The Three Princes of Serendip. The tale is about three men who were on a mission but they always found something that was irrelevant but needed.

Serendip is the Persian name for the island county Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka did not adopt this name until 1972. In its history it has gone by many different names including Lankadweepa, Lakdiva, Ceylon and Sinha.

Russian-born American author and professor of biochemistry may have said it best with “The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not ‘Eureka!’, but ‘That’s funny…’”

The Hewlett-Packard HP-35 was first introduced on February 1, 1972 and was the first handheld electronic calculator sold by HP. It was also the first handheld ever to perform logarithmic and trigonometric functions with one keystroke.

Digital Watches are introduced.

Atari was founded in June 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney and they install the first prototype of the video game Pong at Andy Capps Bar in September of the same year.

Pepsi-Cola introduced the Twelve-pack.

Woody Guthrie may have died in 1967, but The Woody Guthrie Foundation was founded in 1972. The foundation serves as administrator and caretaker of the Woody Guthrie Archives.

Jumper Cables
Again this doesn’t depend on the season, although it seems as if a weak battery always appear during colder weather. So long as it’s done correctly there is little danger in jump-starting a dead battery. There are many ‘How-To’ instruction on-line. Print one, place it in a plastic bag for protections and put the instructions with the cables.

A good spare tire
When was the last time you checked the spare tire? Check it a few times during the year and especially before winter to be sure that it is ready just in case it’s needed.

Ice scrapper
In snow or on a frosty morning, clean all of the windows so you can see.

Blankets, gloves and a warm jacket
These will be a blessing if the car decides to die in the middle of the night far from the nearest help.

Sand or Kitty litter and a small shovel
If the car gets stuck in snow or on a slippery surface you can place the sand or kitty litter around the tires to help get traction.

No one knows the exact day not year of Jesus’ birth. With Bible references it is thought that he was born around 4 BC in the spring. Shepherds bring their sheep in during the winter and not tend to them as related in the Bible.

Christmas was not celebrated in the early days of the American Colonies. In some places the practice of celebrating Christmas was actually banned. It wasn’t until the Victorian times that it restored with a lot of assistance from Dicken’s A Christmas Carol, Clement Moore’s ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas and the Santa drawings of Thomas Nast.

Santa Claus is a fairly modern invention although he has basis in history. There was a St. Nicholas, a third century saint. But it’s the Dutch Sinterklaas that is the biggest basis. The Sinterklaas feast celebrates the birthday of Saint Nicholas. In 1809 Washington Irving’s Knickerbocker’s History of New York features Sinterklaas.

Bing Crosby has not one but three of the biggest Christmas recording. Everyone knows that his White Christmas was a big hit, but so was his recording of Silent Night in 1935 and I’ll Be Home for Christmas first recorded in 1943 were also big hits. Crosby donated all of his royalties from Silent Night to charity.

The city of North Pole, Alaska with a population of 1750 and located 14 miles southeast of Fairbanks was incorporated on January 15, 1953. The name was selected in an effort to attract business. Many streets bear holiday names: Santa Claus Lane, Snowman Lane, Kris Kringle, Mistletoe, Holiday Rd., Saint Nicholas Drive, North Star Drive, Blitzen, and Donnor. northpolealaska.com