The 1969 moon landing was published in The San Diego Union on July 21, my dad treasured that historic moment by saving the newspaper of that day.
The 1969 moon landing newspaper
I slid a plastic storage bin from under my bed looking for some old baseball cards. In the bin was a plastic Dillard’s bag and I had forgotten what was in it. Looking inside I immediately remembered the stack of 4 or 5 newspapers. My parents divorced over 20 years ago when I was a teenager. When my Dad left, he left a lot of stuff at the house, stuff I thought meant a lot to him. A few years ago my dad died and left almost nothing behind. These newspapers are one of the few things I have from him. So I lug them around to each place I live, never leaving them behind, afraid if they are lost I will lose some of the good memories I have of my dad.
I took out the papers and read the headlines. The one top was about the 1969 moon landing dated the day after it happened. The others were of events that seem important at the time but are almost forgotten in history. Events such as the shooting of Ronald Reagan and the death of one of JFK’s brothers.
Only The San Diego Union‘s 1969 moon landing newspaper interested me. That was the oldest one of the stack by far. My dad had saved it for years and periodically showed it to me throughout my childhood. He was quite proud of it and thought one day it would be worth a lot of money. You can find this exact paper for sale on eBay in almost perfect condition for $25. Our newspaper is far from perfect condition. Sadly, it’s rapidly falling apart and has so much damage it doesn’t seem worth spending any time or money rescuing it. So, before it totally disappeared, I photographed every page of it to at least preserve its memory of it.
Inside The Newspaper
The pages inside of the newspaper are really interesting and almost funny. In the ads, things are absurdly cheap such as a 12-pack of soda for $1 and a bottle of Old Forester for $6.19. There are ads for funny things in there like TV rentals for $4.95 and fancy floral furniture covers. Apparently 2001: A Space Odyssey and Love Bug were playing the theaters that week. There’s even a photo of the Pope looking through a telescope into space.
Apart from the incredible moon landing, there is some really interesting news in there. One article is about Richard Nixon approving of billionaire Howard Hughs’ purchase of Air West airline. Another is about the census questions bothering people. The article states that there were only 179 million people in the U.S. at that time. An article about celebrity news discusses how Michael Cain’s 70-year-old mother approves of his current girlfriend. And then there’s a Dear Abby article. A person asks her, “is sex a proper classroom topic”? These articles and more give us insight into life at that time in San Diego.
The Full Newspaper
Below you can read the whole newspaper. Unfortunately, I was not able to find a way to embed a high-resolution version of it. It’s nearly 500 MB big. If you are interested in having a copy of the hi-res version of the pages let me know and I’ll send it to you.