Cold War Playground Equipment
Cold War playground equipment was intended to foster children's curiosity and excitement about the Space Race. It was installed during the Cold War in both communist and capitalist countries. United States In 1959, '' Popular Mechanics'' wrote that a Kiwanis Club in Ontario, California was "in tune with the times" when it erected a three-story rocketship in a local playground. Around 1962, a high Moon rocket was installed in a playground in Calwa, California. The "Calwa Rocket", described as "an affectionate symbol of an earlier time", was designated a heritage property in 2013. The "space-age shift" in playground design was described in a 1963 issue of ''Life'' magazine, which featured Fidel Castro on the cover. A row of tree trunks installed in a Kansas City, Missouri park could elicit "any game an imaginative child might think up," including "an array of ICBMs on a launch pad." By 1963, Philadelphia had installed 160 space-aged playgrounds, which featured satellites, rocke ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Rocket Slide In Edmundson Park, Oskaloosa, Iowa
A rocket (from , and so named for its shape) is a vehicle that uses jet propulsion to accelerate without using any surrounding air. A rocket engine produces thrust by reaction to exhaust expelled at high speed. Rocket engines work entirely from propellant carried within the vehicle; therefore a rocket can fly in the vacuum of space. Rockets work more efficiently in a vacuum and incur a loss of thrust due to the opposing pressure of the atmosphere. Multistage rockets are capable of attaining escape velocity from Earth and therefore can achieve unlimited maximum altitude. Compared with airbreathing engines, rockets are lightweight and powerful and capable of generating large accelerations. To control their flight, rockets rely on momentum, airfoils, auxiliary reaction engines, gimballed thrust, momentum wheels, deflection of the exhaust stream, propellant flow, spin, or gravity. Rockets for military and recreational uses date back to at least 13th-century China. Significan ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Life (magazine)
''Life'' (stylized as ''LIFE'') is an American magazine launched in 1883 as a weekly publication. In 1972, it transitioned to publishing "special" issues before running as a monthly from 1978 to 2000. Since then, ''Life'' has irregularly published "special" issues. Originally published from 1883 to 1936 as a general-interest and humor publication, it featured contributions from many important writers, illustrators and cartoonists of its time, such as Charles Dana Gibson and Norman Rockwell. In 1936, Henry Luce purchased the magazine, and relaunched it as the first all-photographic American news magazine. Its place in the history of photojournalism is considered one of its most important contributions to the world of publishing. From 1936 to the 1960s, ''Life'' was a wide-ranging general-interest magazine known for its photojournalism. During this period, it was one of the most popular magazines in the United States, with its circulation regularly reaching a quarter of the U.S. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Richard Peter
Richard Peter (10 May 1895 – 3 October 1977) was a German press photographer and photojournalist. He is best known for his photographs of Dresden just after the end of the Second World War. Life Richard Peter was born and raised in Klein Jenkwitz, Silesia, where as a teenager he worked as a smith and a miner while dabbling in photography. He was drafted into the German army in 1914 to serve in the First World War. After the war he settled in Halle and later in Dresden. He joined the labor movement and the Communist Party of Germany, and during the 1920s and early 1930s his photographs were published in various left-wing publications. Because of this, he was promptly barred from working as a press photographer when the Nazi Party rose to power in 1933. During the Third Reich, he worked in advertising, before being drafted again to serve in the Second World War. Peter returned to Dresden in September 1945 to find the city destroyed after the bombing of Dresden of Februa ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Atlas Obscura
''Atlas Obscura'' is an United States, American-based travel and exploration company. It was founded in 2009 by author Joshua Foer and documentary filmmaker/author Dylan Thuras. It catalogs unusual and obscure travel destinations via professional and user-generated content, operates group trips to destinations around the world, produces a daily podcast, as well as books, TV and film. The brand covers a number of topics including history, science, food, and obscure places. History Thuras and Foer met in 2007, and soon discussed ideas for a different kind of atlas, featuring places not commonly found in guidebooks. They hired a web designer in 2008 and launched ''Atlas Obscura'' in 2009. Annetta Black was the site's first senior editor. In 2010, the site organized the first of the international events known as Obscura Day. Thuras has stated that one of the site's main goals is "Creating a real-world community who are engaging with us, each other and these places and getting away ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Yuri Gagarin
Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin; Gagarin's first name is sometimes transliterated as ''Yuriy'', ''Youri'', or ''Yury''. (9 March 1934 – 27 March 1968) was a Soviet pilot and cosmonaut who, aboard the first successful Human spaceflight, crewed spaceflight, became the first person to journey into outer space. Travelling on Vostok 1, Gagarin completed one orbit of Earth on 12 April 1961, with his flight taking 108 minutes. By achieving this major milestone for the Soviet Union amidst the Space Race, he became an international celebrity and was awarded many medals and titles, including his country's highest distinction: Hero of the Soviet Union. Hailing from the village of Klushino in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian SFSR, Gagarin was a foundryman at a steel plant in Lyubertsy in his youth. He later joined the Soviet Air Forces as a pilot and was stationed at the Luostari/Pechenga (air base), Luostari Air Base, near the Norway–Russia border, Norway–Soviet ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Baikonur
Baikonur ( ; ) is a city in Kazakhstan on the northern bank of the Syr Darya river. It is currently leased and administered by the Russian Federation as an enclave until 2050. It was constructed to serve the Baikonur Cosmodrome with administrative offices and employee housing. During the Soviet period, the town was known as Leninsk, and was sometimes referred to as Zvezdograd (). It was officially renamed Baikonur by Russian president Boris Yeltsin on December 20, 1995. The Russian controlled area is an ellipse measuring east to west by north to south, with the cosmodrome situated at the area's centre. Foreign visitors and tourists can visit the cosmodrome and city but need to obtain a specific permit from Roscosmos. History The original Baikonur (Kazakh for "wealthy brown", i.e. "fertile land with many herbs") is a mining town 320 kilometres northeast of the present location, near Dzhezkazgan in Kazakhstan's Karagandy Region. Starting with Vostok 1 in April 19 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Grinnell, Iowa
Grinnell ( ) is a city in Poweshiek County, Iowa, United States. The population was 9,564 at the time of the United States Census, 2020, 2020 census. It is best known for being the home of Grinnell College, as well as being the location of the Merchants' National Bank building, designed by famous architect Louis Sullivan. History Grinnell was founded by settlers from New England who were descended from English Puritans of the 1600s. Grinnell was founded in 1854 by four men: Josiah Bushnell Grinnell, Josiah B. Grinnell, a Congregationalist from Vermont; Homer Hamlin, a minister; Henry Hamilton, a surveyor; and Dr. Thomas Holyoke. The city was to be named "Stella," but J. B. Grinnell convinced the others to adopt his name, describing it as rare and concise. Grinnell was incorporated on April 28, 1865, and by 1880, Grinnell had a population of around 2,000. Located at the junction of two railway lines (east–west line of the Rock Island Railroad and the north–south Minneapoli ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Dallas Observer
''Dallas Observer'' is a free digital and print publication based in Dallas, Texas. The ''Observer'' publishes daily online coverage of local news, restaurants, music, and arts, as well as longform narrative journalism. A weekly print issue circulates every Thursday. The ''Observer'' has been owned by Voice Media Group since January 2013. The ''Observer'' is a member of the Association of Alternative Newsmedia. It has won dozens of national and regional awards for its journalism, including two first places for longtime columnist Jim Schutze in the 2017 AAN Awards. In 1995, the H.L. Mencken Writing Award went to columnist Laura Miller, who went on to become the mayor of Dallas The Mayor of the City of Dallas is a member of the Dallas City Council and its presiding officer. The current mayor is Eric Johnson (Texas politician), Eric Johnson, who has served one term since 2019 Dallas mayoral election, 2019 and is the 60 ... after leaving the ''Observer''. In 2007, two ''Observe ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Richardson, Texas
Richardson is a city in Dallas and Collin counties in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2020 United States census, the city had a total population of 119,469. Richardson is an inner suburb of the city of Dallas. It is home to the University of Texas at Dallas and the Telecom Corridor, with a high concentration of telecommunications companies. More than 5,000 businesses have operations within Richardson's , including many of the world's largest telecommunications and networking companies, such as AT&T, Verizon, Cisco Systems, Samsung, ZTE, MetroPCS, Texas Instruments, Qorvo, and Fujitsu. Richardson's largest employment base is provided by the insurance industry, with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas's headquarters, a regional hub for the insurance company GEICO, regional offices for United Healthcare, and one of State Farm Insurance's three national regional hubs located in the community. History Emigrants from Kentucky and Tennessee settled near present-day Richa ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Philadelphia
Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the United States, with a population of 1,603,797 in the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. The city is the urban core of the Philadelphia metropolitan area (sometimes called the Delaware Valley), the nation's Metropolitan statistical area, seventh-largest metropolitan area and ninth-largest combined statistical area with 6.245 million residents and 7.379 million residents, respectively. Philadelphia was founded in 1682 by William Penn, an English Americans, English Quakers, Quaker and advocate of Freedom of religion, religious freedom, and served as the capital of the Colonial history of the United States, colonial era Province of Pennsylvania. It then played a historic and vital role during the American Revolution and American Revolutionary ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City, Missouri, abbreviated KC or KCMO, is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri by List of cities in Missouri, population and area. The city lies within Jackson County, Missouri, Jackson, Clay County, Missouri, Clay, and Platte County, Missouri, Platte counties, with a small portion lying within Cass County, Missouri, Cass County. It is the central city of the Kansas City metropolitan area, which straddles the Missouri–Kansas state line and has a population of 2,392,035. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the city had a population of 508,090, making it the sixth-most populous city in the Midwestern United States, Midwest and List of United States cities by population, 38th-most populous city in the United States. Kansas City was founded in the 1830s as a port on the Missouri River at its confluence with the Kansas River from the west. On June 1, 1850, the town of Kansas was incorporated; shortly after came the establishment of the Kansas Terr ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Space Race
The Space Race (, ) was a 20th-century competition between the Cold War rivals, the United States and the Soviet Union, to achieve superior spaceflight capability. It had its origins in the ballistic missile-based nuclear arms race between the two nations following World War II and the onset of the Cold War. The technological advantage demonstrated by spaceflight achievement was seen as necessary for national security, particularly in regard to intercontinental ballistic missile and Reconnaissance satellite, satellite reconnaissance capability, but also became part of the cultural symbolism and ideology of the time. The Space Race brought pioneering launches of artificial satellites, robotic landers to the Moon, Venus, and Mars, and human spaceflight in low Earth orbit and ultimately to the Moon. Public interest in space travel originated in the 1951 publication of a Soviet youth magazine and was promptly picked up by US magazines. The competition began on July 30, 1955, when ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |