July 20 · This Day in America
At 10:56 p.m. Eastern, Neil Armstrong steps off a ladder onto another world while six hundred million people hold their breath at once — the largest shared human moment in history to that point. A nation that did not exist two centuries earlier had just put a man on the Moon and brought him home. The plaque they leave behind does not boast. It says they came in peace, for all mankind. On the best days, that is what the country is reaching for.
Source: www.nasa.gov
Also on this day · 1969
Armstrong meant to say "one small step for a man." The "a" was lost to static and a dry throat 240,000 miles away. He insisted for years he'd said it; analysis is still argued. Somehow the slightly broken version is more human, and more American, than the perfect one would have been.
Source: www.nasa.gov