versailles peace talks, which greatly irritated politicians back home, which ended up in the versailles treaty not been ratified by congress. it would take a second world war to convince popular opinion and congress that we would need to be a very active member in that piece organization afterwards. peace organization afterwards. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2018] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> before the apollo astronauts stepped on the surface of the moon, they trained outside of flagstaff. it was filled with over 400 craters to simulate the lunar surface. we will now be visiting the lowell observatory to learn more

about this legacy. .> i choose this as our goal they may well ask, why climb the highest mountains? y, 35 years ago, fly the atlantic? we choose to go to the moon. we choose to go to the moon. [applause] we choose to go to the moon and do the other things, not because they are easy, because they are hard. because that goal, the spirit of organizing and measuring the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win -- and the others, too. [applause] 19thchindler: in the early days, president john kennedy said we want to galvanize our

country to do something very bold, and it was the space race. we wanted to do something bold to beat the russians. let's beat the russians by sending humans to the moon and returning us safely before the end of the 1960's. at the country is starting to think about going to the moon, one of the questions we had was, how do you know where you are going? if you travel to a foreign country, you take him out with you to figure out where you are going. if you travel to a foreign world , you have to have a map so you do not hit the side of a rock or run into a crater or something like that. that was a critical part of preparing to go for the mood -- go to the moon. historic clarkhe 24 inch refracting telescope dome of lowell observatory. this was established in 1894, before arizona with even a state.

lowell came from back east from a wealthy family, got interested in astronomy, and realized if he was going to build an observatory back east, it was not ideal because it was the 1890's, you had the proliferation of electric lights that were shining on the skies and making it more difficult to see stars and planets and such. so what he decided to do was go to the american southwest. he sent an assistant out here, andrew douglas, to map sites around the territory, and they chose flagstaff. skies,ff has very dark and was at a higher elevation, 7008. the higher elevation -- 7000 feet. the higher the elevation, the less air you have to look through. the air is like a swimming pool. everything is kind of fuzzy because the water is bending that light -- air does the same thing. so the more air you look through the more distorted stars are going to look through. igher are h

elevations, the dark side, great location. up on mars hill, where lowell observatory is located, you see the dome of the telescope standing 40 feet tall, like a birthday cake -- 400 feet tall, like a birthday cake on the hill. in 1894,d to set up and had this telescope built, a 24 inch diameter, 32 foot refracting telescope. that means it uses lenses instead of mirrors to collect the light. he built this in 1896 and it was used in mexico for about one year, then brought back here in 1897 and has been here ever since. this is really a classic instrument, classic part of scientific history, american andory, cultural history, the first evidence of the expanding nature of the universe was collected using instruments on this telescope.

and it was important in that search and study after discovery as well. there has been a lot of great research with this over the last several decades. it has not been used any reason -- for research anymore, but we use it for educational purposes. the last major research done with this was mapping the moon, and that was a unique thing that was done with this. it really captures our imagination, especially as we are approaching the 50th anniversary of the first manned mission to the moon. apollo eight flew to the moon in december 1968, and neil armstrong and buzz aldrin took the first steps on the moon in 1969, july. all those astronauts and ,veryone who walked on the moon everyone who traveled to the moon trained here in flagstaff. they learned geology, tested instruments, learned about reading maps. that is something that was important and done here at the

observatory with this telescope. the bad thing, the critical things lowell was involved with ing to go to the moon. and in 1962, the second group of astronauts were named. you had the mercury seven that flew up and did the mercury flight, just showing we could get up into space. alan shepard was the first american in space and road for 15 minutes, came back down. in 1962, this second group came along. when they came on. when they came-- on, gene shoemaker and flagstaff , he talked to nasa and some other scientists and said, if we are going to plan to send people to the moon, we should do more than just plan the flight and come back. we should do science. what a better way to learn about the origins of our planet and who we are then by studying another body in the solar system, similar to ours, kind of

our partner, as it were. in january 1963, the next nine astronauts, the second group that included neil armstrong, frank gorman, and others, they came out here on a very cold day, flew into flagstaff airport -- they flew onto planes, in case one crashed, not all the astronauts would have perished. in and these guys were rock stars. they were met by the mayor, they were met by cheering fans wanting autographs, but then they went to a meteor crater. theou are going to go to moon and do geology around this pockmarked, cratered area of the moon, why not study and prepare for that in the best preserved impact crater there is, which is meteor crater, right down the road from where we are at lowell observatory. they went to meteor crater to see what an actual impact crater looks like, and then they went to lowell observatory to study

the mapping and see how these futures are depicted on maps. they will have to be able to read these maps and relate what they are seeing on the maps to the real features. at night, after dinner, the group broke up into three. each group went with some folks -- some of them stayed here at will observatory with this telescope, some went to northern arizona university and their went toe, and the other the naval observatory's flagstaff station, located about four miles from here. in those three groups using three different telescopes, the astronauts each looked through the telescopes to see the moon and where they would be going. in one day, they could see what an actual impact crater looks like, how impact craters are depicted on the map, and what the moon's impact craters actually look like. so the upside is that first trip was very successful. nasa realized the value of training the astronauts to do all the future

groups of astronauts that went to the moon came here to flagstaff to train. we are now out in the field, where several miles -- we are several miles from downtown flagstaff, and not far from that crater that are up to tens of thousands of years ago. this entire field is sanders from that-- cinders explosion. when astronauts were training out here, they went to sunset crater, media crater, and other places, but they wanted another place to train, something that was even more accurate for the lunar surface in terms of the craters. in 1968, the usgs, based on an image of the moon, created this crater field. they looked at this image from lunar orbiter and dug holes with backhoes, filled them with

explosives to create different sized craters, and it was 400 plus craters that were made out here. they set the charges, blew it up, and it was a cloud of his late -- a cataclysmic explosion of cinders blew up in the air. ity realized from the air was really effective. it did look like the craters on the moon in terms of not the exact geology, but the orientation of the craters and the layout and everything. from 1968 through the end of 1972, really, the astronauts came here for training. for the earlier missions before they had the rovers, they came out here again to practice carrying their tool carriers, and describe the rocks and survey the landscape. later missions, when they developed the rovers for the last three missions, they brought those out here and practiced driving them. today, this area is protected.

it has a fence around it. this is national forest service land. there is a second field that they created that is a mile away, an open recreation area -- a lot of the craters have been worn down -- this one is still in nice shape 50 years after it was created, and we can see this nice crater, and you can he quite -- kind of a bit of a rim going around it from when it originally exploded. this is the largest one, and we are on the northwest corner of the field, and a lot of other craters around here that we can see. it is kind of a neat thing, that anyone can come out here and the. d see. our observatory was founded by an amateur, not a professional astronomer. wasman who discovered pluto an amateur astronomer. he grew up on a farm in a farm, and at

nighttime in kansas, what is there to do? he built his own telescope. at 24 years old, he discovered a planet. no other to astronomers -- astronomers have found it, he did. so even though astronomers make rate studies and inspire us, astronomy is not just the realm astronomers,a it is all of us. you can do a lot with it and just look up, and be excited about it. staff cities tour recently traveled to flagstaff, richna to learn about its history. learn about flagstaff and other stops on our tour at c-span.org/citiestour. you're watching american history tv, all weekend, every weekend on c-span3.

on q&a, charles county and talks about his biography on the 30th president of the united states, benjamin harrison. >> he was in indianapolis, and in his house, he gave four speeches that day. his campaign people said, this is a thing to do, let people come to you. over the next four or five months, until the election, that is what happened. harrison stayed home, slept in his own bed, and would meet these delegations, visiting delegations from around the state, the country, and often it would be special interest groups -- the call mainers -- coal miners, wheat farmers, whatever. they would come and harrison would give them a short speech, mostly attuned to their own interests but something that would resonate with people generally. he had his own stenographer take down what he said, and then he would go over what he had said

and make sure it was what he wanted the people to read. he would give it to the associated press and the next morning and is in the newspapers all over the country. >> historian charles calhoun, sunday night at 8:00 a.m. eastern on these been's q&a -- c-span's q&a. former american congresswoman helen bentley served in congress tom 19 85 to 18 -- 1985 1995. next, miss bentley talks about her career as a reporter for the baltimore sun, and her appointment as chairwoman of the federal maritime commission, which made her the highest-ranking woman in the nixon administration. she also discusses her run for congress. much of her career is focused on before she won her election to the house. congresswoman died in

august 2016, months after this was recorded.