Friday links

On July 20, 1969, man first landed on the moon. Here's NASA's Original Mission Video (over 3 hours - if you just want to see the first step, start at 3:15), Photographs Taken By NASA's Apollo Mission Astronauts and a gallery of photos from the mission, memories of Plucking NASA's Moonmen From the Sea, and the speech prepared for Nixon in the event of a disaster.

The Pentagon has a laser that can identify people from a distance—by their heartbeat.

Hollywood’s Doom Book and other Tales of Blacklisting in American Cinema.

Tomorrow is the anniversary of the 20th of July plot, the unsuccessful bomb attempt to kill Hitler in 1944.

Why did we wait so long for the bicycle?

How the Escalator Forever Changed Our Sense of Space.

ICYMI, most recent links are here, and include a 19th century experimental pneumatic subway, lawn mower physics (in slow motion), treadmill history, why red M&Ms disappeared for a decade, and the anniversary of the beginning of the atomic age (the 1945 Trinity test and related links).

Tuesday links

On July 16, 1945 the atomic age began with the Trinity nuclear test. Related, this 1954 PSA: How a Clean, Tidy Home Can Help You Survive the Atomic Bomb and a rather naively optimistic 1957 Disney classroom film - Our Friend the Atom.

An experimental pneumatic subway secretly built in Manhattan in the late 19th century.

Why Red M&M's Disappeared for a Decade.

The Physics of How Lawn Mower Blades Cut Grass (at 50K frames per second).

The Torturous History of the Treadmill - it was originally designed to exploit prison labor.

Gallery: The serious side of historical games.

ICYMI, most recent links are here, and include poorly translated English language T-shirts spotted in Asia, that time America air-dropped pianos for troops in battlefields, the evolution of the Army helmet, and the eating habits of Medieval peasants.