What a day in history

April 12 is one of those days in history where when you look back through time, you simply say "wow."

Sixty-two years ago today, my favorite president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, passed away in Warm Springs, Georgia, exhausted from physical disability, leading the country out of the Great Depression and to victory in World War II. Victory in Europe was less than a month away, and mere four months in Japan. We owe so much as a country to FDR, one of our most influential presidents ever and our longest serving commander in chief in our nation's history. His record of serving 12 years will never be surpassed, unless Congress and the nation repeal the Twenty Second Amendment, which appears highly unlikely.

Above, FDR's funeral procession through Washington, D.C.

Roosevelt's "Four Freedoms" enshrined at the FDR Memorial in Washington, D.C.

I take time today for a bit to reflect on FDR because he was one of our best (and I would argue our finest president), but also because I'm so disillusioned with our current leadership in Washington.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, January 30, 1882 - April 12, 1945.

Today is also the day, in 1961, that Yuri Gagarin became the first human to get launched into space, setting off the space race that eventually put Neil Armstrong on the moon, and hopefully, in my lifetime, men and women on Mars. Gagarin was killed in a flying accident in 1968.

Today also marks the day that the Space Shuttle Columbia launched John Young and Robert Crippen into orbit on STS-1, the first space shuttle mission. I remember exactly where I was - in front of my television, like millions of other young American children who wanted to be astronauts when we were young. Columbia broke up over the Southwest United States on February 3, 2003.

Quite a day indeed.

All photos from Wikipedia