At 10:56 Eastern Daylight Time Neil Armstrong the commander of the Apollo 11 mission- became the first human to walk on the surface of the Moon. His first words- which have to be the most famous words said in history ” That’s one small step for man..one giant leap for mankind.” He would soon be joined on the Moon’s surface by Buzz Aldrin. They would spend 2 hours and 36 minutes walking on the Moon-setting up a television camera, doing their experiments, gathering Moon rocks. The astronauts at the time of landing were 244, 391 miles from Earth.

A lot has been made over the last 50 years of Neil Armstrong being the first to walk on the Moon- in interviews he would downplay that- he said that to him the landing on the Moon was the bigger accomplishment.

Meanwhile the third astronaut Mike Collins- would be alone in Columbia orbiting the Moon for the twenty-one and a half hours that Neil and Buzz were on the Moon.