Bill Anders

This 1968 portrait of Apollo-8 astronauts William Anders, Frank Borman, and James Lovell by Hector Garrido appeared in an exhibition on the year 1968 at the National Portrait Gallery.

The year 1968 was marked by rioting in the nation's black ghettos and mounting protests over the war in Vietnam. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy had been assassinated, and there had been a Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. But as Time pointed out in its year-end summary, 1968 closed with an event that was bound to overshadow these other happenings. In late December, three astronauts (left to right)—William Anders (born 1933), Frank Borman (born 1928), and James Lovell (born 1928)—had embarked on the first successful human orbit of the moon, and on Christmas Eve, the trio reported live from their Apollo 8 spacecraft. The full implication of this achievement could not yet be understood, Nevertheless, Time could not help but conclude that of all the people who had made news in those past twelve months, Anders, Borman, and Lovell were the right choice for 1968's Men of the Year. -- NPG

William Alison Anders (born October 17, 1933) is a retired United States Air Force major general, former electrical engineer, nuclear engineer, NASA astronaut, and businessman. In December 1968, as a crew member of Apollo 8, he was one of the first three people to leave low Earth orbit and travel to the Moon. Along with fellow astronauts Frank Borman and Jim Lovell, Anders circled the Moon ten times, and broadcast live images and commentary back to Earth. During one of the mission's lunar orbits he photographed the iconic image, Earthrise. - Wikipedia