"Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed."

On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first human being to set foot on the Moon. The first step onto the Lunar surface from the Apollo 11 Lunar Module, the Eagle, fulfilled the promise of President John F. Kennedy that the U.S. would land a man on the Moon before the end of the decade. It was the highlight of an extended U.S. program to study and map the Moon, beginning with Ranger 7 impacting the Moon on July 31, 1964 and culminating with Apollo 17, which left the Moon on December 14, 1972. The scientific return from these missions was immensely important and included nearly complete high-resolution imaging of the lunar surface, lunar samples, topographic, seismic, and gravity data, and information on the lunar environment.

Famous quote: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."