1 seconds | Monday, August 16, 2021
You’re listening to the Palestrina Choir on a Victor 78 from 1927 And, you’re on the Sound Beat! The choir is singing the Hymn to Apollo, one of the Homeric hymns: a collection of thirty-three anonymous ancient Greek hymns celebrating individual gods. It’s thought to have been written in 522 BC. Apollo is the son of Zeus, God of the Sun and light. His name was selected for NASA’s third spaceflight program by then manager Abe Silverstein because “Apollo riding his chariot across the Sun was appropriate to the grand scale of the proposed program.” Grand scale indeed, incorporating President John Kennedy’s...