Kennedy's 'We choose to go to the Moon' speech
1962 · Event
To 40,000 people baking in a Texas stadium, Kennedy makes the case for a Moon landing that has no strategic necessity — 'not because they are easy, but because they are hard'. It is less a policy than a dare to the nation, and it fixes the deadline the whole programme now races.
On these timelines: The Space Race, USA, Master, Arts and Thoughts
More from The Space Race
- Apollo 11 moon landing (1969)
- Sputnik launch (1957)
- Yuri Gagarin: first human in space (1961)
- Apollo program announcement (1961)
- 'One small step': the Moonwalk broadcast (1969)
- Apollo 17 leaves the Moon (1972)
- Gemini 6 and 7 rendezvous in orbit (1965)
- Apollo 1 fire (1967)
Around 1962
- Decolonisation of Africa (1952)
- The Troubles (1968)
- US Civil Rights Movement (1954)
- Six-Day War (1967)
- Watergate scandal (1972)
- Prague Spring (1968)
- Cuban Missile Crisis (1962)
- Vietnam War (American phase) (1965)
- Cuban Revolutionary War (1953)
- Suez Crisis (1956)