how to get out of the vi editing mode

[Sam Steingold]

I hit something by accident and command line editing no longer works.
(I think I switched to the vi mode).
1. how do I get back to the emacs mode? (aka what did I hit?!)
2. how do I disable vi mode forever and ever (short of recompiling bash myself)?

thanks.

-- 
Sam Steingold (http://sds.podval.org/) on Ubuntu 9.04 (jaunty)
http://mideasttruth.com http://palestinefacts.org http://ffii.org
http://thereligionofpeace.com http://pmw.org.il http://dhimmi.com
Perl: all stupidities of UNIX in one.