AHTER 1969 Apollo 11 Man Walks on Moon

It was the finale to a decade of turbulence and upheaval. But this time, it was an event through which a nation could put aside its differences and stand together to marvel at the achievement. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy had pledged that before the sixties were over, an American would walk on the moon.

On July 20, 1969, hundreds of millions of people around the world watched that dream come true. Three American astronauts, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, had helped to navigate a spaceship 240,000 miles from Earth to the Moon.

APA at a descent, 100 miles, descent engine command over right off, and down off, with good scenery then. Go land landed. At 10.56 pm Eastern time, Neil Armstrong descended from the space capsule and set foot on an airless, lifeless surface where no man had ever walked before.

Anchoring the coverage of the Apollo 11 mission for CBS was Walter Cronkite. The journalist, The New York Times later called, a one-man phenomenon in space coverage. But after 17 straight hours on the air, even Cronkite struggled to find the words to describe the extraordinary sight he was witnessing.

Oh boy. Thank you. You looking good here? Mm. What? What? What are you doing? I'm going to do this for a minute. After all, Mom, take care of it. Hey. Why don't you say something?

I'm speechless. I'm just trying to hold onto my breath. That is really something. Four days later, completing a journey of extraordinary precision and magnitude, the capsule carrying the three astronauts fell safely back into the pool of Earth's gravity.

where they were treated as conquering heroes. A global salute led by President Richard Nixon. I was thinking as you know, as you came down, and we know it was a success, and it had only been eight days, just a week, a long week.