Pink and green text on a white background with an illustration of miss piggy

Souvenir button from the 1984 White House Egg Roll. Artwork is taken partially from the program cover (which is "The Muppets at Easter Time"), featuring Miss Piggy exclusively, instead of the four Muppets and one Fraggle Rock character that the program cover and bag included, done by Guy & Brad Gilchrist.  The event was canceled due to rain.

Red, green, yellow, blue and white striped background with red text on the center white stripe

This button originally came with ribbons and a football charm.

Carnegie Mellon University (Carnegie Mellon or CMU, and formerly known as Carnegie Tech) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania founded in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie. The university started as Carnegie Technical Schools and changed its name to Carnegie Institute of Technology and began granting four-year degrees in 1912. In 1967, the Carnegie Institute of Technology merged with the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research and formed the Carnegie Mellon University as known today.

The background is split horizontally between yellow (top) and navy blue (bottom). Text straddles both sides and is itself split into the alternating color scheme: navy blue (top) and yellow (bottom).

The United States Naval Academy (USNA, or more commonly known as "Navy," especially in the context of sporting events) is located in Annapolis, Maryland. It was established in 1845 as the nation's service academy to train officers of the United States Navy and Marine Corps.

Black text over a black and yellow smiley face with a black outer edge on a yellow background.   

The classic yellow smiley face is comprised of a yellow circle, two black dots for eyes, and a black arc ending in serifs for a mouth. It was designed in 1963 by commercial artist, Harvey Ross Ball. Ball was commissioned by The State Mutual Life Insurance Company to create a happy face to raise the morale of their employees. His version was created in 10 minutes. The design was printed onto more than 50 million buttons. Neither Ball nor the company copyrighted this smiley, so it was continually used by other businesses in their promotions.
The design and concept is quite simple and was definitely used before Ball’s 1963 version. However, his has become the most iconic. Variations have been used for advertising campaigns and in popular culture ever since.

The University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, is a public state university whose colors are black and gold.

Black and white photograph of a man's head and shoulders in a space suit surrounded by a ring of red with white text, a thin white ring and an outer blue ring.

John H. Glenn Jr. was born in 1921 in Cambridge, Ohio. John Glenn served during World War II in the Navy and Marines and in the Air Force and Marines during the Korean War. In 1962, Glenn became the first person to orbit the Earth in the Mercury-Atlas 6 spacecraft, commonly known by it's nickname, "Friendship 7". In 1998, he returned to space aboard the STS-95 Discovery, while conducting experiments on the aging process. In 1974, he was elected as a senator from Ohio, a position he retained until his retirement in 1998.

Red outer edge across the top with white text in it over a black and white photograph of three men in space suits

Apollo 8 was launched on December 21, 1968 and was the second manned mission of the Apollo program. The crew of the Apollo 8, Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders, became the first humans to orbit the Moon, the first to see the far side of the Moon, and experience the Earth rising over the Moon's horizon. Apollo 8 helped pave the way for the Apollo 11 mission by testing the communication, tracking and life-support systems of the Apollo Command Module. The crew was also able to photograph the lunar surface to obtain information on topography as well as other scientific information necessary for future Apollo landings.

Read more about the History of NASA buttons on the Busy Beaver blog.

Red text along the top and bottom edges with a blue and gold illustration of the Houston skyline over a blue banner with gold text and an illustration of ships on whater, on a gold background.

The American Dental Association held their annual conference in Houston, Texas in 1941. Every year, the conference is held in a different city and provides professional development training for attendees.

Black and white photograph of a man's head in a space suit on a white background and in the center of the button with two space capsules one on each side of the head and red text along the top edge and under the image with a blue bottom edge with white text.

This button commemorates Astronaut Scott Carpenter who was the fourth American in space and the second to orbit the Earth. Carpenter was one of seven astronauts selected for NASA's Project Mercury. On May 24th,1962 Carpenter was launched into space aboard the spacecraft Aurora 7. The goal of the mission was to corroborate the previous space flight of putting a man in orbit. During reentry a targeting error took the spacecraft 250 miles off course. There was great concern over whether Carpenter had survived as he could not be easily located after his splashdown. Carpenter never flew in space again. He sustained an arm injury in a motorcycle accident in 1964 which made him ineligible for spaceflight. He went on to work as an aquanaut for the Navy's SEALAB program.

Read more about the History of NASA buttons on the Busy Beaver blog.

Black and white illustration of a spaceship and the legs and feet of a person in a space suite walking on the moon with a strip of red above and below it with white text.

This button commemorates the Apollo 11 Moon landing of July 20, 1969. Buttons like this one were sold and collected as souvenirs of the historic event. Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin walked on the Moon's surface while Michael Collins orbited above in the command module. Broadcast on live TV Neil Armstrong was the first to step onto the lunar surface and spoke the now infamous words "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Apollo 11 ended the Space Race by beating the Soviet Union in the race to the Moon as well as meeting President John F. Kennedy’s 1961 challenge to land a man on the Moon before the end of the decade.

Read more about the History of NASA buttons on the Busy Beaver blog.

Black and white photograph of a man's head and shoulders in a space suit on a white background and in the center of the button with a blue outline of a banner across the top with red text in it and red text under the photograph and blue text along the bottom edge.

Malcolm Scott Carpenter was born in Boulder, Colorado on May 1, 1925. H served as a pilot in the United States Navy during World War II. He orbited the earth several times aboard the Aurora 7 and became the first person to eat solid food in space before returning to earth. His spacecraft landed in the Atlantic Ocean and he was picked up forty minutes later by a U.S. Navy vessel while aboard a life raft that was stored in his space capsule.

Read more about the History of NASA buttons on the Busy Beaver blog.