announcer: american history tv products are now available at the new c-span online store. -- c-spannd board store.org to see what is new, and check out all the new products. announcer: coming up, our look at rapid city continues as we hear about the first manned flight into the earth's stratosphere. >> in 1935, two army captains named anderson and stevens sailed off of the south dakota planes to a record-breaking 72,000 feet. >> we are really lucky in rapid city. we have some interesting history that goes beyond just the culture of the area. in the learning center my we are talking about the strataball and the stratosphere flight, and sending man up above the stratosphere. essentially, the rapid city area

is the home of the first spaceflight. what the national geographic and u.s. army air corps did with as they worked with the state to make this happen. they wanted to find a natural shape to rest the balloon and the gondola in. they were looking for a bowl area, not only to spread out the balloon on the ground, but also protectsral bowl shape the gondola for the first couple of thousand feet as it goes up. they scoured all of north america for a place. they had a couple of different decisions that they could have made, places they could have chosen. and essentially they chose rapid city because of how kind the people were, because of how welcoming we are. the perfect shape of the bowl was nice, too, but it did come down to the people of the area. that was the reasoning behind choosing it. the first attempt happened in 1934.

there were three men on the first flight. it was captain orval anderson, major william kepner, and captain albert stevens. what happened was they got into the gondola and they went up and they hit about 60,000 feet. and they think the friction between the metal and the canvas of the balloon ignited the hydrogen that was inside the balloon. and so, the balloon failed. it busted up completely. and they fell into a freefall. they started exiting the gondola. you know, they had parachutes. the first man got out fine. the second man got stuck in the gondola itself. the first man -- we don't who was first and who was second and who was third. but the first man got out. he had to kick the second man out of the gondola to get in him free. major kepner, who we know was actually last, he got out of the

gondola at about 500 feet above the ground. so, the second flight happened in 1935. the national geographic and u.s. army air corps did change how the balloon was created. what they did was they actually used helium instead of hydrogen. and that allowed the balloon to not ignite, which is fabulous for the people in the gondola. two of the men came back, that was orval anderson and albert stevens. they did both come back for the second flight. they hit 72,395 feet. they took measurements about the stratosphere and cosmic radiation and anything they could possibly measure they attempted to while they were up in the gondola. and they took an image of the curvature of the earth, which had never been done. they were recognized for their efforts.

they were given medals by fdr, and it was just a success, an all-around success. but what makes it even better for rapid city is it happened in the black hills. it was here. it was local. it was just a great community involved piece of history. announcer: our cities tour staff recently traveled to rapid city, south dakota, to learn about its history. to watch more video from rapid city and other stops, visit c-span.org/citiestour. you're watching american history tv, all weekend, every weekend, on c-span3. we continue our coverage of a daylong conference on herbert hoover during the two world wars. all four conference speakers answer audience questions, but

first, we hear from a kansas city art institute professor emeritus. he talks about the views and policies president franklin d roosevelt and former president hoover on war-torn europe and the question of what to do about the plight of war victims, especially women and children. >> this is the title for my new book called the battle royale, hoover versus roosevelt. i'm going to show you two images first. this is the first one from the america first committee, which was isolationist. here, we will take a look at these two and go back. these are from the committee to defend america against the allies. -- to aid the allies.