lectures and history, louisiana state university history professor on a time prior to the american revolution. his emphasis was scientific reasoning that shaped the politics and morals of that generation. 1727 byarts out in establishing the junto, the young men's improvement club about improving their community, individual morals. they would read books and share ideas. these young men like himself who were not born to wealth who believed it was possible to rely , study, and get ahead in society. , weunday morning at 10:00 look back at the 2000 campaign of george w. bush, his announcement to run well in new hampshire, and his visit to eliminate stand and a pumpkin

festival. bush went on to win the general election. the 1950 eight army film titled "why nato?" >> in december 19 50, the north atlantic council decided to give to a single commander sufficient authority to organize, a quick, and train and integrate all nato force. the task before him was unprecedented the beach country would cede to the supply and support of its own national forces, the supreme commander would be responsible. >> at 8:00, catherine clinton on narrativesc changing of mary todd lincoln. why some of her critics have labeled her as crazy.

for complete schedule, go to www.c-span.org. on weekend, american history church --s or worchester massachusetts located about 40 miles of west -- west of boston. about the city all weekend. march 17, 1926, the first flight with a rocket using liquid propellant was made yesterday in auburn. the day was clear and comparatively quiet. the annulment or on the physics lab was turning leisurely when mr. sachs and i left in the morning. it was turning as leisurely when we returned at 5:30 p.m.

even know the release was rised, the rocket did not at first. after a number of seconds, it rose slowly until it cleared the ski, and then it expressed closing to the left and striking at a rapidill going rate. it looked almost magical as it rose without any appreciable greater amount of flames as if it said "i have been here long enough, i think i'll be going somewhere else." 1882. goddard was born in at hisborn here grandmother's house about two miles from here. famous for his rocket work. he was the first person to

successfully launch a liquid fueled rocket in 1926. when he was a professor here 1943, he met his wife here, who was a secretary of the president when he met her. they had very much of a connection. after he died, his wife kept working on his material and the library was built and named after robert goddard. she donated the papers and 's by the in the library architects. it was created in the planning of the building to have the exhibit space for his artifacts and to have storage space for all of his papers we have here. his papers,'s we had diaries and note books of his. he kept diaries from the time he

was 16 until he died. two particular times, he didn't afteranything for a month he got married and when he was in the hospital. than that, he kept diaries the whole time and would tend to put in what is activities for the day was, any books he was reading. he would tend to see that he and esther went out for eyes cream or went to a movie. he would say who was working on what rocket work. this one is from october 19, 1899, the day he climbed the cherry tree. hisrt goddard attributes first interest in space travel and his first interest in a career in science to a day in 1899 when he was 17 years old

and he and his family were living with his grandmother here. it was october 19 and he went outside with a saw and a hatchet and was meant to trim the dead branches off the cherry tree. tree.mbed the i think he made himself a little there,end while he was he looked on the field around him and that how wonderful it would be to build some kind of a device that could leave the earth and maybe even travel to mars? day was a turning point in his life. he felt when he came down from the tree that his life had purpose and he himself said later that that was the

beginning of his interest in the beginningnd of a scientific career. andent downtown for books tried to measure land. --put up flag and trend trimmed a large cherry tree in the afternoon. does all he says about a day that affected the rest of his life. he started in 1903, which was before he graduated high school keeping notebooks of his ideas. most of them look like this. this one is about a safety valve. they often had and drawn diagrams in them. he would go to a notary public and have this document notarized to prove that he had this idea on this date.

a lot of these pages have a notary. aboutt very strongly keeping track of his own creative ideas. then also in the papers, we have . lot of his correspondence i got out a couple of letters between him and hg wells. "e had read "war of the worlds in 1898. in 1932.to wells you might think this was quite a bit after but he read it a number of times in his life. he said dear mr. wells, because i believe expressing appreciation is that are then thinking it, i am venturing to

write this letter in the hope it may interest you. in 1898, i read "war of the old.s" i was 16 years it made a deep impression. the spell was complete about a thatafter and i decided what might conservatively be called high-altitude research was the most fascinating problem in existence. he spelled it not break and i took up physics as a profession, entering the physics department 1914ark university in where i have been headed the department since 1923. my work on the theory of the space problem cumulated in 1919 .ith a paper in the smithsonian i have the greatest admiration for your later work, which you no doubt feel is more important

your find most inspiring optimism. it is the best anecdote i know for the feeling of depression that comes at times when one contemplates the remarkable capacity from the bungling of man and nature. this is sincere appreciation. respectfully yours, robert goddard. >> wells had a response that was very short. he did send him a card back that said dear mr. goddard, inc. he for your friendly letter. it's the sort of greeting we appreciate from people like you. i also brought out letters between goddard and charles lindbergh. they had a great deal of correspondence between when they and is interesting that in one of these letters, charles lindbergh asks goddard

advice on an experiment he's doing. and he says i'm building a tank which will contain oxygen under 10 atmospheric pressure. i would like to use mineral oil and some of the instruments. do you believe there's any danger of combustion? have you any idea whether or not an explosion or rapid combustion would take place? saying irote him back believe that all of the metal parts inside the tank were grounded, there would not be a serious danger from static electricity. there are often letters between them. lindbergh thanking goddard for sending reports about his

experiment and the correspondence until goddard to death. clippingsve newspaper that esther and robert kept. we have put up until robertson dead on our website -- depth on our website. esther kept them until the end of her life. have the first four clippings from the clippings that appeared after his message of reaching extreme altitudes appeared in january 1920. one of them described that he has devised a rocket that could hit the moon and then after that , things often got a little more extreme. picturesstarted having of what the rocket might look like.

flyer whoe, there's a volunteered to go along on the rocket. i think his only condition was he have life insurance. clippings io 1929 after were from the rocket exploded in july on landing. people thought a plane had crashed. this was in the boston paper. just this paper rocketmoon market -- man's test alarms whole countryside. they have clippings basically from all around the country and the wire services published things all around the country. the other thing that is brought out, these are two of his gyroscopes he would have worked with as a teenager doing

experiments. this is a particularly nice one. it is a little more simplistic but you can turn it and it is balanced in either way. those are ones we have. this is a nosecone from a rocket. i'm not sure what era of rocket it was. framework around rockets in 1929 but i have a feeling this one might have come from a later flight. i also brought out a number of photographs. this is what he used to prove you could have this in a vacuum. he was ableell jar to pull the air out of to make a vacuum. you can see the pistol on a pivot that would spin when they fired blanks. that was how he proved you could have dressed in a vacuum --

thrust in a vacuum. this is a plaque he received from buzz aldrin. book that flewe to the moon. his endpapers show a blueprint from goddard. moon, he says flown to the july 16-24 1969. first booke in the that want to be moon, which is kind of amazing. those are all the artifacts i've brought out. clippingss, diaries,

are available from our website. you can go and do a search and find all of them there. >> are cities store -- for staff traveled to massachusetts. learn more about the city and other stops on our tour at www.c-span.org. you are watching american history tv all weekend, every weekend on c-span3. history bookshelf is our weekly program featuring popular american history writers. key -- hed options chronicles the history and fear of polio in the development of the vaccines. presidentscusses

franklin d roosevelt's effort to find a cure and the work of the march of dimes, playing a pivotal role in research and fundraising to fight the result -- disease. it is about an hour and 10 minutes. >> good evening. thank you for coming. on behalf of commerce bank and the second-story bookshelf, welcome to tonight stalk. a -- talk. commerce bank has a long history of doing community support and outreach. as you go further into westchester, you will see more of these events popping up. i would like to take note to thank phil, the manager of the store. that branch actually paid for all the advertising for this event. we thank them very much. [applause]