February 22nd in 1984 had a lot to do with uncomfortable situations everywhere. From the Middle East, the attempts at brokering a peace settlement in Lebanon fell on Saudi Arabia and Syria in an attempt to hammer something out in what became known as The Damascus Peace Plan. Unfortunately, it left Lebanon President Amin Gemayal in one of those "damned if you do - damned if you don't" situations. In the meanwhile, U.S. Marines, stationed in Beirut since 1982 were pulling out and turning over responsibilities to a UN Peacekeeping force. Enough of this getting shot at from both sides.

Elsewhere in the Middle East - the Iran-Iraq War was still raging on, with Iran now threatening to close the Straits of Hormuz, effectively cutting off oil shipments. That wasn't going to fly with oil interests at all.

In Europe, an uproar over austerity measures in France, Spain and Italy were causing most services to be shut down over strikes in protest.

Back home - President Reagan was set to go before microphones and cameras with his first Press Conference of 1984. The Press had a lot of questions over our Foreign Policy and that age-old malady, our Economy.

The Supreme Court ruled companies on the verge of bankruptcy could cancel union contracts at the discretion of a Federal Bankruptcy judge. And the Miranda Law did not apply to Probation Officers.

The New Hampshire primaries were set to go in a week with one last debate to go before heading to the polls. Democratic hopefuls Walter Mondale and Gary Hart were in the number one and two spot while John Glenn was seeking a change in his campaign after dropping to fifth in the polls.

And U.S.-Vietnam talks were ready to resume after hitting a few bumpy spots over MIA's, causing the negotiations to be put on hold.

All this and lots more via the CBS World News Roundup and 9:00 am (PST) network news for this Wednesday February 22, 1984.

Fifty years ago today, just about every kid in every school around the country was herded into an auditorium, or had a TV or radio carted into their classroom and sat, glued to the spectacle going on in front of them for the better part of that day. Nothing else went on, it wasn't business as usual. We were busy witnessing something.

I'd like to say it seemed like yesterday but no, it really does seem like fifty years ago. John Glenn and his apt named space capsule Friendship 7 were doing something we only imagined before this day and it was borne out of that curiosity that was so prevalent in the Post-World War 2 era and The New Frontier of the Kennedy Years. Part of it was a result of the Cold War and our desire to be Number One in All Things Adventuresome. But most of it really was doing something that just hadn't been done before. Those of us who had our heads buried in the latest Science Fiction book or TV show or magazine article just thought it was the next logical step in Art versus Reality.

We were primed for this for a while. Ever since Alan Shepherd the year before, we knew it was only a matter of time. But there was also that thing in the back of our heads that asked "what if it goes wrong? What it if explodes? What if he's stuck up there?". We didn't really know what to expect.

But enough time has passed and enough discoveries have been made so we can now look at this particular day, unfolding long before most readers were born and shrug "not that big a deal". Hindsight is a lot more confident than the reality of the moment. And at that moment in 1962 the uncertainty prompted an otherwise staid announcer to yell "Go Baby, Go!", triggering an excited squeal from my elementary school auditorium and an admonishment from the school Principal that the TV would be turned off if we didn't calm down.

And that's how history presented itself on this day in 1962. The uncertainty of the future and the excitement of the possibilities. Even a Fifth Grader knew that.

Here is an excerpt of that day recapped via an NBC Radio Special report for February 20, 1962.

Forty-eight years ago this week, on September 12, 1962 President Kennedy pledged to put a man on the Moon by the end of the decade. After a tour of the Houston Space facilities he addressed the students at Rice University.

Pres. Kennedy: “We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.”

Yes, we're capable of that too - lately, it's been easy to forget.