Apollo 17 astronauts Harrison Schmitt and Eugene Cernan blasted off from the surface of the Moon on this date in 1972 after spending three days exploring it. (Photo at top.)

The two explorers left behind a plaque which read in part, “Here man completed his first explorations of the Moon, December 1972. May the spirit of peace in which we came be reflected in the lives of all mankind.”

Gene Cernan remains the last human to stand on the Moon. A documentary about him, titled The Last Man on the Moon, was released to acclaim in 2015.
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James Dean made his television—and professional acting—debut on this date in 1950. He was 19 years old, and he was one of several young people seen in a live, minute-long TV ad for Pepsi-Cola.

The young people are at a party, and Dean puts money in the player piano, as seen in the photo at top. The piano doesn’t work and Dean “fixes” it.

The ad (after the jump);
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Guglielmo Marconi reported the successful reception of the first transatlantic radio signal on this date in 1901. He had built a station in Cornwall, the far southwest of England, and then traveled to Canada, to a far eastern point in Newfoundland called Signal Hill. (In the photo at top, Marconi is seen on the left directing his associates as they raise a kite with an antenna attached. They are atop Signal Hill.)

The message, three repeated clicks, which is Morse code for the letter S, was sent from the Cornwall transmitter at an appointed time, and, at that appointed time, something—one click or was it three? You heard it, too, right?—something was heard at Signal Hill. At the time of the transmission, the entire route was in sunlight.
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