The last time a crew of Americans rode a rocket toward the Moon, the country was reeling from assassinations, riots, and a grinding war. Apollo 8’s Christmas flight in 1968 did not fix any of that, ...

On this day in aviation history, 57 years ago (December 24, 1968), Apollo 8 became the first manned spacecraft to leave planet Earth's gravitational pull, and also the first human space flight to ...