History Series: Apollo 11
History of the 1st Moon Landing — Apollo 11
54 Years Ago
Fifty-four years ago today, at 3:17 Eastern Time, July 20, 1969, the first human stepped out of the Apollo 11 lunar module onto the moon. With the immortal words of the 38-year-old Neil Armstrong:
“That’s one small step for (a) man,
one giant leap for mankind.”
…the first man in history began an excursion on the moon that lasted over two and a half hours.
Five hundred million people watched it on television. Everyone I knew watched it.
Moon Landing: The Mission
Eight years previously, in May of 1961, President John F. Kennedy, in his special State of the Union message, had uttered these galvanizing words:
“I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before the decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth.”
You’ve undoubtedly heard the phrase:
“Space, the final frontier… her mission…“
It was spoken first in September of 1966. But John Kennedy’s 29-word statement five years earlier captured the sense of “mission” more clearly and memorably than Americans had commonly heard before.
