Sebastian Smee The Washington Post

The most important visual image associated with the moon landing of July 20, 1969, was not any picture of the landing itself. It was the photograph taken on Christmas Eve the previous year, 1968, when William Anders, an astronaut aboard Apollo 8, photographed the Earth.

In 1926, Sarah Lewis's grandfather, Shadrach Emmanuel Lee, was expelled from a Brooklyn public high school for asking why black people were not in his history textbook. His teacher told him African Americans had done nothing worthy of being included.

We yearn, as humans, to increase our knowledge, and a day like today - an image like this one - briefly satisfies that yearning.

"Girl With Balloon" had just sold for $1.4 million when an alarm sounded in the auction room. The canvas then began sliding down inside its frame, emerging at the bottom in strips, having been shredded by a remote-control mechanism on the back of the frame.

The most important visual image associated with the moon landing of July 20, 1969, was not any picture of the landing itself. It was the photograph taken on Christmas Eve the previous year, 1968, when William Anders, an astronaut aboard Apollo 8, photographed the Earth.

In 1926, Sarah Lewis's grandfather, Shadrach Emmanuel Lee, was expelled from a Brooklyn public high school for asking why black people were not in his history textbook. His teacher told him African Americans had done nothing worthy of being included.

We yearn, as humans, to increase our knowledge, and a day like today - an image like this one - briefly satisfies that yearning.

"Girl With Balloon" had just sold for $1.4 million when an alarm sounded in the auction room. The canvas then began sliding down inside its frame, emerging at the bottom in strips, having been shredded by a remote-control mechanism on the back of the frame.