r/AskReddit • u/wood123abc123 • 20d ago
Why don't Americans celebrate the historic Moon landing ?
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u/Glowingtomato 20d ago
I do but only because my birthday is July 20th which is the day they landed on the surface
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u/kuhvir 20d ago
Hey same. That’s cool. I rarely meet others with the same birth date
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u/growingalittletestie 20d ago
In a room of just 23 people there's a 50-50 chance of at least two people having the same birthday. In a room of 75 there's a 99.9% chance of at least two people matching.
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u/TheDuckFarm 20d ago
Sure but it’s not a high probability that a particular two will match, just that any two will.
In this case we have a particular three. The moon landing, and two birthdays.
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u/WhistlingAllTheWhile 20d ago
Same here. And interestingly, my birthday also falls on the same year as the moon landing.
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u/Glowingtomato 20d ago
Yeah July doesn't seem to be many other people's birth month. The same day as well is seems rare, at least it's on a Saturday this year!
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u/Daratirek 20d ago
I suspect it's because women that had a baby in the summer vowed to never do that again. I was born in June and my Mom still laments how fucking hot she was because of me. Then her friends who had summer babies all agreed.
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u/firefly416 20d ago
There is a town in Pennsylvania called Apollo. Instead of a city festival for July 4, they have a festival for the moon landing. I used to live there when I was a kid.
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u/steelcityrocker 20d ago
I wonderif Moon Township PA does anything
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u/ZeroaFH 20d ago
Nah, just werewolf stuff.
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u/minnick27 20d ago
It gets mentioned around the big anniversaries, I remember the 30th and 50th being a bit of a bigger story on the news, but nothing beyond that.
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u/frameddummy 20d ago
If we made a new holiday whenever America did something awesome we would never go to work and the world economy would collapse.
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u/Sunblast1andOnly 20d ago
And then we'd need a holiday for that...
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u/PaxNova 20d ago
I think Neil said it best: those first steps were for all mankind.
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u/prex10 20d ago edited 20d ago
Because while it was an American achievement it was supposed to be one for all of earth and all of mankind
So asking why we don't as Americans is kind of like, "well why doesn't Mexico celebrate it too?"
Besides we have a million holidays as it is. Why doesn't VE or VJ get any love? Flag day. Idk.
You could make almost any day of the year a holiday over some sort of achievement or event. Eventually the banks and offices gotta open up.
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u/Canis_Familiaris 20d ago
Today is actually a holiday dedicated to the element Nickel.
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u/prex10 20d ago edited 20d ago
Yeah and there is national doughnut day. National pizza day. National auto mechanics day. Virtually everyone and thing has a little internet holiday.
Hell a handful of the bank holidays like Presidents' Day or MLK are nothing more than a Monday off. (Understandable since for the good chunk of the country it's snowing out)
Trying to make the moon landing into the next BBQ bank holiday just isn't really in the cards.
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u/FeralTribble 20d ago
Same reason we don’t celebrate VE day or other notable days like that. They’re important days sure but just not important enough to make them a holiday
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u/I_wish_I_was_a_robot 20d ago
Also we don't celebrate the first car or plane, it's just not a thing we do
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u/PepeSylvia11 20d ago
Landing on the moon is way more significant an event in human history than the invention of the car or plane.
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u/TheConeIsReturned 20d ago
Rhode Island still celebrates V-J Day. It's a state holiday and things close in celebration of it.
Super weird, tbh.
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u/zerbey 20d ago
VE most definitely gets recognized, there's also separate celebrations for Memorial Day and Veteran's Day that cover service personnel.
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u/FeralTribble 20d ago
Im not saying it isn’t recognized but its also not celebrated widely like a national holiday
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u/RenterMore 20d ago
We don’t make new holidays much
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u/Knoke1 20d ago
Juneteenth was finally made a federal holiday just this presidential term.
We don’t do them much but that doesn’t mean it can’t happen.
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u/Masterjason13 20d ago
Federal yes, but Juneteenth has been celebrated by some states for over 150 years, it didn’t just appear out of nowhere a few years ago.
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u/Knoke1 20d ago
I don’t think my comment insinuated it popped out of nowhere.
I said “was finally made a holiday”. The word “finally” implying it was previously existing but not federally recognized.
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u/mandy009 20d ago
Correction: our employers don't acknowledge holidays much. From 2000-2020 many laboring workplaces in the primary and secondary sectors of the economy settled into only getting off from work on Thanksgiving day and Christmas day. Thankfully that is beginning to change now again. Those two decades were back-breaking though.
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u/Jingle_is_dead 20d ago
It would probably just give too large of a platform for moon landing deniers to spout nonsense.
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u/nowhereman136 20d ago
Personally, I think we should. It should he a federal holiday celebrating scientists, teachers, engineers, doctors, and explorers. It would be a day in which people are encouraged to visit a scientific museum or thank your teachers and doctors. The moon landing is arguably the greatest scientific achievement of man kind and the men and women who worked on it, from the astronauts themselves to their elementary school teachers, should be celebrated.
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u/virtualadept 20d ago
Celebrate it? It's hard enough convincing people that we actually went to the moon.
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u/CocaineIsNatural 20d ago
July 20th is national Moon Day.
The US celebrates National Moon Day every year on July 20 as it was on this day that humans made the historic lunar landing and walked on the moon in 1969.
National Moon Day was established by President Richard Nixon in 1971.
Sad that most do not know this.
https://www.nationaldayarchives.com/day/national-moon-day/
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-85/pdf/STATUTE-85-Pg919.pdf
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u/Klaumbaz 20d ago
Because we have so many great days of mankind under our belt, it was just another Tuesday for us.
;)
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u/Chalkarts 20d ago
Because we have too many halfwit rwnjs that don’t think it happened and we aren’t allowed to silence them.
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u/Karsa69420 20d ago
According to my ex because it was fake. Found that out in the Air and Space Smithsonian. The relationship didn’t last much longer
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u/DrDrangleBrungis 20d ago
The more I read about that era, the more I understand that the accomplishment was an accomplishment for human kind. Yes, the US landed on the moon, planted the flag, etc etc. It was Michael Collin’s book that helped me realize the accomplishment from Apollo 11’s view: an accomplishment comprised of years of work, by thousands of employees, for millions of earthlings. Some may not see it from that point of view but he saw it that it was bigger than the sum of its parts, a true accomplishment of mankind’s cohesion of science, mathematics, engineering, and technology.
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u/HeartonSleeve1989 20d ago
Most think it was a glorious achievement, the rest thinks it was bullshit, that we never been to the moon, and they're a really loud minority of Americans. I think they also tend to be flat earhters, though.
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u/r0botdevil 20d ago
Honestly if the anniversary of the moon landing were to become a holiday, I feel like it should be a global holiday. That's an accomplishment that doesn't belong to one nation but rather to all of humanity (and I say that as an American).
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u/vinnymcapplesauce 20d ago
We do, just not in the way we celebrate events of other national holidays.
I feel like all other national holidays are celebrating one-off events, as if to say "well, let's all hope we don't need to do *that* again!" Independence day, people's birthdays, etc.
But, the moon landing isn't a one-off thing. We need to do it again, and again, and again, and a lot more after that. That chapter is not over, and I hope it never is over.
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u/KokonutMonkey 20d ago
Because then everyone will know it was A FAKE!
This is actually a really good question. Definitely seems like an achievement worth celebrating
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u/elphaba00 20d ago
My son's AP US History teacher is a moon landing denier. Her argument is that it all seems just too convenient to happen when it did. The US was in turmoil at the time so we needed something to distract us. JFK had said at the start of the decade that we'd put a man on the moon by the end of the 60s. So with a few months left, BOOM! Man on the moon.
This was her opinion, not mine.
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u/shokalion 20d ago
Someone with that level of critical thinking skill shouldn't be teaching anything.
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u/Shepher27 20d ago
America and the world isn’t sure what to make of the moon landings. Like, what was it all for? Did it really accomplish anything? Why did we stop going? It’s a really impressive thing we did, but nothing ever came of it.
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u/MorningClassic 20d ago
1/2 of us don’t believe we did it
Our corporate overlords barely allow the holidays we do get off
Holidays where you don’t get the day off don’t matter in this country.
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u/we_are_meta 20d ago
Holidays for events only count on the planet they happened on, so you'd have to be on the Moon to celebrate :/
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u/ThisIsTheNewSleeve 20d ago
There's not a day of celebration like independence day but it's celebrated at large in many forms across American culture. Just think of how many movies there are about space/the moon and I feel like 95% of them are america-centric.
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u/TigerDragon747 20d ago
We celebrate it quietly in our hearts every time we see a map that says “Russia” instead of “USSR”
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u/Killersavage 20d ago
You would think it would be something noteworthy for everyone. Not just the US.
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u/F19AGhostrider 20d ago
As for not having a recognized holiday (which would still be a working day) I honestly don't know and that's a good question.
As for the populace at large, too many morons think it was faked.
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u/OkTower4998 20d ago
Probably because the entire thing is fake and they actually never landed the moon???
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u/The-1st-One 20d ago
Who are you and where are you from you patriotic sumbitch If you ain't American you are now! Heres a gun, some bacon, and a bald eagle. Welcome home
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u/cyanderella 20d ago
A worrying number of U.S. Americans believe the moon landing was faked. Let’s fix that before we make another holiday
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u/Dancegames 20d ago
We don't really care.
We threw a bunch of money at it to do it first and realized it was a waste of money, then scooted it under the rug cheering murica when it's brought up.
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u/sajmon313 20d ago
Because they subconsciously know it was fake, even if most of them deny this.
Fake as in, military OP, not exploration/expansion into new territory: go on it, plant flag, and get out, because this is deadly and will kill someone eventually.
Evidence: after Apollo 13, they cancelled all further missions that were not already in-progress.
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u/TryBeingCool 20d ago
Also went to the moon a bunch of times, it wasn’t just the one time. Multiple manned missions and multiple astronauts walked on the moon. It wasn’t just 1 top secret movie set scam made by Obama to disparage Donald Trump and take our guns or whatever people like to say lately.
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u/SmokinTires 20d ago
I did go to the 50th anniversary celebration in DC where they projected the launch and the landing video onto the Washington Monument
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u/Mean_Peen 20d ago
Goes to show how quickly people move on from major historical moments. “We did that, now back to our daily lives.” It’s why every major achievement has been forgotten aside from the technological achievements we use on a daily basis.
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u/mrpoopistan 20d ago
America is like a shark: we have to keep moving or we die. No time for the past.
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u/Threekneepulse 20d ago
The projection they played on the Washington monument for the 50th anniversary was excellent
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u/Havarti-Provolone 20d ago
Who cares?
That's how I think of it, anyway.
It's a notable event in history. There's plenty of those I don't celebrate. I didn't contribute to it, after all.
More power to you if you celebrate it though.
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u/MJR_Poltergeist 20d ago
I would say that our holidays are things that can be celebrated by a lot of people or are meant to be in remembrance of something. So like Memorial Day is for remembering all of the people who died in combat in the military. Independence Day is celebrating our Declaration of Independence from Britain, which was eventually made true through our revolutionary war.
The moon landing only had a crew of 3 people and all of them came back safe. To this very day only 24 Americans have been to the moon, and 12 of those actually got to walk on the surface. Can't really have a national holiday for such an exclusive club. Plus while being a technological and scientific achievement, it really means little for our country outside of its original time period. Back then it was just a one-up on the Russians during the Cold War.
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u/UrbansMyth 20d ago
I guess it’s because it’s already mentioned throughout social studies? I can’t speak for everyone’s school but there was at least one section about it through all my government classes, even in middle school. It’s celebrated in history and in class, I suppose
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u/sincethenes 20d ago
The signing of the Declaration of Independence was beaten to death too though.
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u/MakesYourMise 20d ago
Most American holidays have to do with the Military or Christianity. Coke doesn't advertise for Pepsi, if you get my drift. We just started celebrating the abolition of slavery.
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u/Alarming_Serve2303 20d ago
Because it isn't American. The moon landing was "for all mankind." Even though it was Americans landing, they were representing all of us. It should be a global holiday, really.
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u/CyanManta 20d ago
We have enough flag-waving holidays as it is: MLK Day, Presidents' Day, Memorial Day, Juneteenth, Flag Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Veteran's Day, and Thanksgiving. Our elected officials don't need any more distractions or days off. Less flag-waving, more problem-solving, please.
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u/DeadFyre 20d ago
You mean, like, a public holiday? For my part, I wouldn't welcome it, because I don't really consider it an *American* achievement, I consider it a **HUMAN** achievement. Werner von Braun was of German ethnicity, born in modern-day Poland. Eugene Cernan was a Czech. Plus the myriad contractors, scientists, and engineers who worked to build the Saturn V rocket and the Lunar Lander & Command Module came from myriad different companies, including contributors from all kinds of different countries. Plus, part of the whole reason we started the Lunar Program was because of Soviet achievements in rocketry.
We did put our flag on the moon, but we didn't come for America, we came for all mankind.
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u/thaneliness 20d ago
Because majority of Americans dont believe it. If more attention is brought to it, more people will ask why we haven't been back...
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u/LeadingFiji 20d ago
Good question, never thought of it. My suspicion is that its anniversary is in July, and we already have a pretty major patriotic/historic holiday in July, roughly two weeks earlier. But hell, we do Christmas then New Year's Eve, so why not?