A consequential month

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Apr 06, 2026

April is a most consequential month in the American story.

Over and over again, it has been the stage upon which remarkable events have played out, which shape with a not-so-hidden hand our current crisis.

It is the month during which the Confederacy fell, and Lincoln and King were martyred.

It is the month that Hitler killed himself, and America stood at a zenith of world power.

It is also the month that America fled Vietnam from an embassy rooftop in Saigon in humiliation and defeat.

It is the month during which the American revolution began in Massachusetts.

It is the month during which the modern era of domestic extremism began in Waco and the Alfred P. Murrah Federal building in Oklahoma City.

It was the month of the first space shuttle flight Columbia 46 years ago by John Young and Bob Crippen, and now it is the month of the Artemis II lunar circumnavigation.

April is a month filled anniversaries and messages from our past — recent and distant — that can help us understand our tormented present a little better, and appreciate the dangers at hand.

Perspective helps us see the present more clearly.

Fifty-eight years ago — on Christmas Eve — the most famous photograph in human history was taken by an explorer named Bill Anders.

It was taken at the end of one of the most tumultuous years in American history, when many people believed the republic was breaking.

This was the first image of the Earth ever seen, set against the blackness of space.

Before it, no one had ever seen the Earth, fully, completely — a beautiful blue marble floating in space.

The American astronauts of the Apollo 8 mission spoke to the people of Earth from their tiny capsule as it came around the back side of the moon. They did not shout “USA! USA!”

They did not speak about power and science.

They did not mention physics, computers, metallurgy, alloys, trajectories, thrust, and the military applications.

They did not boast or brag.

They did not threaten or bluster.

Instead, they let the people of our planet look out the window with them.

This is what they said as humanity had its first look at what we shared:

Bill Anders
Oh my God! Look at that picture over there!
There's the Earth coming up. Wow, that's pretty.
Frank Borman
Hey, don't take that, it's not scheduled. (joking)
Bill Anders (laughs)
You got a color film, Jim? Hand me that roll of color quick, would you...
Jim Lovell
Oh man, that's great!

Then they read from the book of Genesis:

Bill Anders
We are now approaching lunar sunrise, and for all the people back on Earth, the crew of Apollo 8 has a message that we would like to send to you.
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
Jim Lovell
And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
Frank Borman
And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.
And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas – and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth.

Twenty-two years before humanity saw that image the very first photo of the Earth was taken from space. The United States put a camera into the nose cone of one of Adolf Hitler’s captured wonder weapons, the V2, and used an instrument of death to see something beautiful. Here is the photo:

Here is a photo from the James Webb space telescope, which may be the greatest scientific instrument ever built by mankind. This image is from the beginning of time, at the birth of the universe. It is as extraordinary as it is incomprehensible:

Here is a photograph of our Earth today from the camera lens of four astronauts — three American and one Canadian — from the moon:

Americans should linger on the picture, and think about power and humanity. We should ponder the destructive potential of modern technology against the potential for discovery and prosperity for all of mankind.

What Donald Trump has promised for tomorrow would be a war crime. What makes it worse is that the modern world that made what Trump has threatened to do an unambiguous crime under international law was American-made.

The American people gave Donald Trump immense power with 49.8% of the vote, but it is not absolute, and it is certainly not infallible.

All should think carefully about Trump’s bluster.

Human civilization began between the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates 4,000 years before the birth of Christ in Bethlehem. There have been approximately 6,000 years of recorded human history during which the sun has risen and set across 2,190,000 days.

The late hours of March 9 and early hours of March 10, 1945, stand apart from every other day because they comprise the greatest incident of violence and death in recorded history across the entirety of human civilization.

What happened then deserves remembrance because the obligations of peace require it.

No one really knows how many human beings were killed in the firestorm, but some estimates are as high as 200,000 people, with more than a million wounded, and more than a million left homeless.

There is a quote that is often misattributed to Nikita Khrushchev about the possibility of World War II and the use of nuclear weapons.

It is reported that he said that if it comes “the living will envy the dead.”

The fire bombing of Tokyo on March 9-10 involved more than 1,000 B-29 Superfortresses flying in a single line from Saipan at night, and approaching the city at 5,000 feet.

The glow of the holocaust of fire that was unleashed could be seen two hundred miles from the coast of Japan. Sixteen square miles of Tokyo were completely destroyed.

Turned to ash.

This was the result:

The bombing of Tokyo on March 9-10, 1945

The point of American strength has never been to pursue or threaten aggression against other nations for the sake of aggression itself. That is what the world’s proverbial bad guys do.

Oh.