Neil Armstrong’s giant leap into the history books
JULY 21, 1969
THE 1960s had already proved to be a momentous decade, but the events of a July day truly made global history that we still talk about today.
As commander of Apollo 11, when Neil Armstrong set foot on the surface of the moon, he ensured he would always be remembered.
And he fulfilled the dream of the United States to get there before the Soviet Union.
Neil’s first words: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” became one of the most instantly-recognisable phrases ever uttered and is still quoted by schoolchildren today.
Neil later said he hadn’t rehearsed what he was going to say or even thought about those words.
Whatever his intentions, they had a lasting impact.
It is less well known that touchdown on the historic flight was fraught with difficulty.
Moments before landing, Neil realised they were heading for a boulder field strewn with rocks the size of cars.
It was only thanks to his skill he managed to find a better site – with just 20 seconds of fuel left.
Neil was joined on the moon by Buzz Aldrin and the pair spent nearly three hours walking on the lunar surface, conducting experiments and taking photographs.
An estimated 600 million people – a fifth of the world’s population at the time – watched and listened to the moon landing.
Many British schoolchildren were allowed to stay up late to watch it, making it the largest audience for any single event in history.
Neil never saw himself as a hero and most definitely not as a celebrity.
He always believed he was simply doing his job – but in doing that job became a reluctant American hero.
Buzz Aldrin, who became the second man to step on the moon, enjoyed the adulation that went with his achievement and didn’t mind life in the public eye.
That historic mission turned out to be Neil Armstrong’s last space flight.
Having gained his pilot’s certificate when he was 15 and after flying missions during the Korean War, he became a test pilot and joined NASA in 1962.
Following his world-beating moonwalk, Neil Armstrong was appointed a desk job at NASA.
He later became a lecturer in engineering at the University of Cincinatti.
President Kennedy had declared in 1961 that the United States would have a man on the moon before the turn of the decade. They made it. In turn, Neil, an unassuming American man, made sure he would never be forgotten.
A fifth of the world’s population watched the moon landing