GUEST: Oliver Springs Historical Society’s Robbie Underwood.

More info about Oliver Springs Historical Society.

Scenes of Coalwood, West Virginia are shown in a series of blackouts, while radio news plays over the scenes:

A coal tractor transports miners deep in the coal mine.

A steam engine moves slowly, in closeup, across the screen.

Hopper cars filled with coal stand in a switchyard, as miners head for the coal tipple.

Men at the company store gather around a radio to listen to the news.

A Norfolk & Western steam locomotive chuffs past a diner.

Two miners sit outside the diner, listening to the news on a portable radio.

A barber and his customer pause in a barber shop, transfixed by the news.

Miners, carrying metal lunch pails, head for the mine.

Miners pass under a sign that says “OLGA COAL COMPANY.”

Miners pass in front of a busy coal company machine shop.

Three miners listen to a portable radio while walking to work.

Miners climb into the mine elevator.

The satellite, which the Russians have dubbed Sputnik…

is being hailed as a milestone in history.

No one in our nation’s capital could deny that the satellite…

has ushered in a grim new chapter in the Cold War.

And indeed, a wave of national anxiety…

already seems to be sweeping the country.

Still maintaining its speed of 18,000 miles an hour…

completing an orbit of the Earth every 96 minutes.

Dr. Wernher von Braun…

Chief Engineer of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency…

expressed the hope that the United States…

would soon be following the Russians into space…

with our own artificial satellite.

Dr. von Braun confirmed that there has still been…

no actual sighting of the Soviet satellite…

but the U.S. expects –