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Young on the Moon during Apollo 16

John Watts Young (1930–2018) was an American astronaut, naval officer and aviator, test pilot, and aeronautical engineer. On April 21, 1972, he became the ninth person to walk on the Moon as commander of Apollo 16. He flew on four different classes of spacecraft: the Gemini capsule, the Apollo command and service module, the Apollo lunar module, and the Space Shuttle. Young served in the U.S. Navy as an aviator, and graduated from the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School. He set multiple world time-to-climb records, and was selected as a member of NASA Astronaut Group 2 in 1962. He flew on Gemini 3 in 1965, and commanded Gemini 10 in 1966. He flew as the command module pilot on Apollo 10 in 1969. After that, he commanded Apollo 16, and spent three days on the lunar surface exploring the Descartes Highlands with Charles Duke. Young also commanded STS-1, the Space Shuttle program's first launch, in 1981, and STS-9 in 1983. He retired from NASA in 2004. (This article is part of a featured topic: NASA Astronaut Group 2.)

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Did you know ...

Gret Palucca, photographed by Hans Robertson

... that Hans Robertson ran a studio in 1920s Berlin where he photographed celebrities such as artist Käthe Kollwitz, boxer Max Schmeling and dancer Gret Palucca (pictured)?
... that the city of Madrid has had five successive sets of walls, from the first built by the Moors in 860 to the ones built by Philip IV in 1625?
... that in response to Disney's stance on Florida's House Bill 1557, also known as the "Don't Say Gay" bill, Pixar employees stated that Disney removes LGBT references from the studio's films?
... that Laura Ashe believes the Gawain Poet used the beheading game to criticize the emptiness of chivalry?
... that the remnants of the Khwarazmian army massacred the Christian inhabitants of Jerusalem in 1244?
... that Ukrainian artist Kateryna Antonovych worked at Prague's Museum of Ukraine's Struggle for Independence before the US Army Air Forces bombed it?
... that a species in the genus of sponges Pseudoceratina produces a chemical that can help prevent migration of metastatic breast cancer cells?
... that the dome atop the Williamsburgh Savings Bank Tower was once called "New York's most exuberant phallic symbol"?

In the news

José Ramos-Horta

José Ramos-Horta (pictured) is elected President of East Timor.
Russia's Black Sea Fleet flagship, the cruiser Moskva, sinks off the coast of Ukraine.
Flooding across KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, leaves at least 440 people dead.
Shehbaz Sharif is elected as Prime Minister of Pakistan after Imran Khan is removed in a no-confidence motion.
A series of attacks by armed bandits kill more than 150 people in Plateau State, Nigeria.

On this day

April 21: First day of Ridván (Baháʼí Faith, 2022); Grounation Day (Rastafari)

Romulus and Remus suckling from the Capitoline Wolf

753 BC – Romulus and Remus (depicted) legendarily founded the city of Rome, according to the calculations of ancient Roman scholar Varro Reatinus.
1509 – Henry VIII became King of England, following the death of his father Henry VII, eventually becoming a significant figure in the history of the English monarchy.
1925 or 1926 – Al-Baqi Cemetery in Medina, the site of the mausoleum of four of the Twelve Imams of Shia Islam, was demolished by Wahhabis.
1962 – The Century 21 Exposition, the first world's fair in the United States since World War II, opened in Seattle.

Pope Alexander II (d. 1073)
Antonín Kammel (b. 1730)
Cheryl Gillan (b. 1952)

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Today's featured picture

The bar-shouldered dove (Geopelia humeralis) is a species of dove, in the family Columbidae, native to Australia and southern New Guinea. Its typical habitat consists of areas of thick vegetation where water is present, damp gullies, forests and gorges, mangroves, plantations, swamps, eucalyptus woodland, tropical and sub-tropical shrubland, and river margins. It can be found in both inland and coastal regions. This bar-shouldered dove was photographed in Brunkerville, New South Wales.

Photograph credit: John Harrison

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