Left to right: Pete Conrad, Richard Gordon and Alan Bean
November 19, 1969: Apollo 12 lands on the Moon. Charles "Pete" Conrad becomes the 3rd man to walk on the Moon, and Alan Bean becomes the 4th.
Apollo 11 had landed 4 months before. So every Moon landing thereafter was an anticlimax: It was, like, "Right, what else ya got?
All 3 astronauts were in the U.S. Navy, and held the rank of Captain. Conrad, the mission commander, was 39 years old, from Philadelphia, and had been awarded 2 Distinguished Flying Crosses. He had previously flown on Gemini 5 and Gemini 11. Bean, the lunar module pilot, was also a Captain in the Navy, 37 years old, from the Texas Panhandle. It was his 1st spaceflight. And the command module pilot, Richard Gordon, was 40 and from Seattle, and had flown with Conrad on Gemini 11.
The command module was named Yankee Clipper, and the lunar module was named Intrepid. It was launched on November 14, 1969, at the John F. Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, with President Richard Nixon becoming the 1st sitting President to attend a spaceflight launch.
(The site was known as Cape Kennedy from 1963 to 1973. It was the Florida legislature, rather than Nixon himself, with his grudge against the Kennedy family, who changed the name back to Cape Canaveral. The Kennedy family raised no objection.)
The Intrepid landed on November 19, near where the probe Surveyor 3 had landed in 1967. While Neil Armstrong had very carefully chosen serious and inspirational words to be the first spoken by a human being on the Moon, Conrad was considerably more flip: As he stepped onto the lunar surface, he said, "Whoopie! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that's a long one for me."
He and Bean examined Surveyor 3, and took some parts back with them to Earth to be studied. The Yankee Clipper splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on November 24, the mission a complete success, even if it was the greatest anticlimax in the history of spaceflight -- if not of humanity itself.
Gordon never flew in space again. Conrad flew in space once more, on the Skylab 2 mission. Bean was on Skylab 3. Conrad died in 1999, Gordon in 2017, and Bean in 2018.
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November 19, 1969 was a Wednesday. Actress Erika Alexander, best known as Maxine Shaw, Attorney-at-Law, on the 1990s sitcom Living Single, was born. This was also the day that Pelé scores the 1,000th goal of his professional soccer career. I have a separate entry for that event.
Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. There were 5 games played in the NBA:
* The Boston Celtics beat the Chicago Bulls, 122-106 at the Boston Garden.
* The San Diego Rockets beat the Philadelphia 76ers, 125-116 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia. Despite the loss, Hal Greer of the Sixers led all scorers on the day with 35 points.
* The Baltimore Bullets beat the Phoenix Suns, 133-118 at the Baltimore Civic Center (now the CFG Bank Arena).
* The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Cincinnati Royals, 116-103 at the Cincinnati Gardens.
* And the Atlanta Hawks beat the Seattle SuperSonics, 137-116 at the Seattle Center Coliseum.
There were 2 games in the American Basketball Association. The New York Nets beat the Miami Floridians, 115-110 at the Island Garden in West Hempstead, Long Island, New York. And the New Orleans Buccaneers beat the Washington Capitols, 122-115 at the Tulane Gym in New Orleans.
And there were 5 games in the NHL:
* The New York Rangers and the Chicago Black Hawks played to a tie, 1-1 at the Chicago Stadium.
* The Montreal Canadiens and the Detroit Red Wings played to a tie, 5-5 at the Montreal Forum.
* The Toronto Maple Leafs and the Los Angeles Kings played to a tie, 4-4 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.
* The St. Louis Blues beat the Pittsburgh Penguins, 4-0 at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh.
* The Oakland Seals beat the Minnesota North Stars, 4-2 at the Metropolitan Sports Center in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota.
* And the Boston Bruins and the Philadelphia Flyers were not scheduled.
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