Source: NASA web site

On another October 19, in 1899, a 17 year-old Robert Goddard climbed a cherry tree on a beautiful autumn afternoon in Worcester, Massachusetts. Inspired by H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds and gazing out across a meadow, young Goddard imagined it would be wonderful to make a device that had the possibility of ascending to Mars. Forever more he felt his life had a purpose and in the following years his diary entries record October 19th as "Anniversary Day", the anniversary of his ascent into the cherry tree. By 1926 he had designed, built, and flown the world's first liquid fuel rocket. Mars is just visible through the trees at the lower right in this dramatic sky view that also features the Moon and Venus -- all visited by liquid fuel rockets constructed on principles developed by Goddard.

haha, I saw this in 2002 live on CNN, Donald Rumsfeld during his press briefing came up with these unbelievably stupid remarks. Have you ever heard or read more stupid remarks than these? :D. Only President Bush can match him I guess.

"Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don't know we don't know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tend to be the difficult ones."

DoD Press Briefing.