Andrew Smith (born 10 February 1961) [1] is an American-born British journalist and nonfiction writer. He lives in New York.[ when? ]
Smith is the author of Totally Wired: on the Trail of the Great Dotcom Swindle, which tells the story of Josh Harris's role in the birth of the World Wide Web and subsequent dotcom bubble in New York at the end of the 1990s. [2] [3] [4]
Smith also wrote Moondust: In Search of the Men Who Fell to Earth, in which he travels across America in search of the nine surviving U.S. astronauts who walked on the Moon between 1969 and 1972. [5]
His next book Adventures in Coderland, is currently "in the works". [6]
Smith has made two documentaries for BBC Four. The first, Being Neil Armstrong, is a trip across America to explore the personal history of the first person on the Moon. [7] The second, To Kill a Mockingbird at 50, about how Monroeville, Alabama has changed since it was used by Harper Lee as the setting for her 1960 novel. [8]
Apollo 11 was the American spaceflight that first landed humans on the Moon. Commander Neil Armstrong and Lunar Module Pilot Buzz Aldrin landed the Apollo Lunar Module Eagle on July 20, 1969, at 20:17 UTC, and Armstrong became the first person to step onto the Moon's surface six hours and 39 minutes later, on July 21 at 02:56 UTC. Aldrin joined him 19 minutes later, and they spent about two and a quarter hours together exploring the site they had named Tranquility Base upon landing. Armstrong and Aldrin collected 47.5 pounds (21.5 kg) of lunar material to bring back to Earth as pilot Michael Collins flew the Command Module Columbia in lunar orbit, and were on the Moon's surface for 21 hours, 36 minutes before lifting off to rejoin Columbia.
The Apollo program, also known as Project Apollo, was the United States human spaceflight program carried out by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which succeeded in preparing and landing the first men on the Moon from 1968 to 1972. It was first conceived in 1960 during President Dwight D. Eisenhower's administration as a three-person spacecraft to follow the one-person Project Mercury, which put the first Americans in space. Apollo was later dedicated to President John F. Kennedy's national goal for the 1960s of "landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth" in an address to Congress on May 25, 1961. It was the third US human spaceflight program to fly, preceded by the two-person Project Gemini conceived in 1961 to extend spaceflight capability in support of Apollo.
Neil Alden Armstrong was an American astronaut and aeronautical engineer who in 1969 became the first person to walk on the Moon. He was also a naval aviator, test pilot, and university professor.
To Kill a Mockingbird is a novel by the American author Harper Lee. It was published in July 1960 and became instantly successful. In the United States, it is widely read in high schools and middle schools. To Kill a Mockingbird has become a classic of modern American literature; a year after its release, it won the Pulitzer Prize. The plot and characters are loosely based on Lee's observations of her family, her neighbors and an event that occurred near her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama, in 1936, when she was ten.
Moon landing conspiracy theories claim that some or all elements of the Apollo program and the associated Moon landings were hoaxes staged by NASA, possibly with the aid of other organizations. The most notable claim of these conspiracy theories is that the six crewed landings (1969–1972) were faked and that twelve Apollo astronauts did not actually land on the Moon. Various groups and individuals have made claims since the mid-1970s that NASA and others knowingly misled the public into believing the landings happened, by manufacturing, tampering with, or destroying evidence including photos, telemetry tapes, radio and TV transmissions, and Moon rock samples.
Nelle Harper Lee was an American novelist whose 1960 novel To Kill a Mockingbird won the 1961 Pulitzer Prize and became a classic of modern American literature. She assisted her close friend Truman Capote in his research for the book In Cold Blood (1966). Her second and final novel, Go Set a Watchman, was an earlier draft of Mockingbird, set at a later date, that was published in July 2015 as a sequel.
"Moon River" is a song composed by Henry Mancini with lyrics by Johnny Mercer. It was originally performed by Audrey Hepburn in the 1961 film Breakfast at Tiffany's, winning an Academy Award for Best Original Song. The song also won the 1962 Grammy Awards for Record of the Year and Song of the Year. In 1999, Mancini's recording was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
The Moon has appeared in fiction as a setting since at least classical antiquity. Throughout most of literary history, a significant portion of works depicting lunar voyages has been satirical in nature. From the late 1800s onwards, science fiction has successively focused largely on the themes of life on the Moon, first Moon landings, and lunar colonization.
To Kill a Mockingbird is a 1962 American coming-of-age legal drama crime film directed by Robert Mulligan starring Gregory Peck and Mary Badham, with Phillip Alford, John Megna, Frank Overton, James Anderson, and Brock Peters in supporting roles. It marked the film debut of Robert Duvall, William Windom, and Alice Ghostley. Adapted by Horton Foote, from Harper Lee's 1960 Pulitzer Prize–winning novel of the same name, it follows a lawyer (Peck) in Depression-era Alabama defending a black man (Peters) charged with rape while educating his children against prejudice.
Apollo 11 was the first human spaceflight to land on the Moon. The 1969 mission's wide effect on popular culture has resulted in numerous portrayals of Apollo 11 and its crew, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins.
The Judoon are a fictional extraterrestrial species of mercenary police from the British science fiction television programme Doctor Who and its spin-offs, first appearing in the Series 3 episode "Smith and Jones" (2007).
Luke Smith is a fictional regular character played by Tommy Knight in the British children's science fiction television series The Sarah Jane Adventures, a spin-off of the long-running series Doctor Who. Luke is a regular character in The Sarah Jane Adventures both in television and audio adventures. He has also appeared in three episodes of Doctor Who: the two-parter "The Stolen Earth"/"Journey's End" (2008), and the Tenth Doctor's finale episode "The End of Time, Part Two" (2010).
Since the publication ofTo Kill a Mockingbird in 1960, there have been many references and allusions to it in popular culture. The book has been internationally popular for more than a half century, selling more than 30 million copies in 40 languages. It currently (2013) sells 750,000 copies a year and is widely read in schools in America and abroad. Harper Lee and her publisher did not expect To Kill a Mockingbird to be such a huge success. Since it was first published in 1960, it has sold close to one million copies a year and has been the second-best-selling backlist title in the United States. Whether they like the book or not, readers can remember when and where they were the first time they opened the book. Because of this, Mockingbird has become a pillar for students around the country and symbol of justice and the reminiscence of childhood. To Kill a Mockingbird is not solely about the cultural legal practices of Atticus Finch, but about the fatherly virtues he held towards his children and the way Scout viewed him as a father.
Fly Me to the Moon is a 2008 animated science fiction comedy film about three flies who stowaway aboard Apollo 11 and travel to the Moon. It was directed by Ben Stassen and written by Domonic Paris. The film was released in digital 3-D in Belgium on 30 January 2008, and in the US and Canada on 15 August. The film was also released in IMAX 3-D in the US and Canada on 8 August. The film serves as a fictionalized retelling of the 1969 Apollo 11 mission by incorporating a story of three young flies that stow away on the rocket to fulfil their dream of going up to the moon, while their families take on a group of Soviet flies who try to sabotage the mission.
The following is a list of works by Arthur C. Clarke.
Charles J. Shields is an American biographer of mid-century American novelists and writers.
Gwyneth Anjuli Keyworth is a Welsh actress. She was born in Aberystwyth and began acting in a local Welsh language youth theatre group. She went on to appear with the National Youth Theatre.
First Man is a 2018 American biographical drama film directed by Damien Chazelle from a screenplay by Josh Singer, based on the 2005 book by James R. Hansen. The film stars Ryan Gosling as Neil Armstrong, alongside Claire Foy, Jason Clarke, Kyle Chandler, Corey Stoll, Christopher Abbott, and Ciarán Hinds, and follows the years leading up to the Apollo 11 mission to the Moon in 1969.
Therese von Hohoff Torrey, better known as Tay Hohoff, was an American literary editor with the publishing firm J. B. Lippincott & Co. Strong-willed and forceful, she worked closely with author Harper Lee over the course of two years to give final shape to her classic novel To Kill A Mockingbird. After the commercial and literary success of the novel, she shielded Harper Lee from the intense pressure to write another one. She retired from a senior editorial position at the firm in 1973 and died the following year.
To Kill a Mockingbird is a 2018 play based on the 1960 novel of the same name by Harper Lee, adapted for the stage by Aaron Sorkin. It opened on Broadway at the Shubert Theatre on December 13, 2018. The play opened in London's West End at the Gielgud Theatre in March 2022. The show follows the story of Atticus Finch, a lawyer in 1930s Alabama, as he defends Tom Robinson, a black man falsely accused of rape. Varying from the book, the play has Atticus as the protagonist, not his daughter Scout, allowing his character to change throughout the show. During development the show was involved in two legal disputes, the first with the Lee estate over the faithfulness of the play to the original book, and the second was due to exclusivity to the rights with productions using an earlier script by Christopher Sergel. During opening week, the production garnered more than $1.5 million in box office sales and reviews by publications such as the New York Times, LA Times and AMNY were positive but not without criticism.