The day when a heckuva lot changed...

We're fond of saying that something "changed everything". Really, I think, nothing changes everything. But some things come closer than others.

Fifty years ago today,October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik I.

(I grew up calling it SPUTT-nik, of course, like everyone else. It would be sixteen more years before I began studying Russian and learned to say SPOOT-neek. I still think of this particular satellite as Sputtnik, though...)