At 12:51 EDT on July 24, 1969, Apollo 11, the U.S. spacecraft that
had taken the first astronauts to the surface of the moon, safely
returned to Earth.

President Richard M. Nixon was in the central Pacific recovery
area to welcome the Apollo 11 astronauts aboard the USS Hornet,
prime recovery ship for the historic Apollo 11 lunar landing
mission. Already confined to the Mobile Quarantine Facility
are (left to right) Neil A. Armstrong, commander; Michael
Collins, command module pilot; and Edwin E. Aldrin Jr., lunar
module pilot.

At 10:56 p.m. EDT, American astronaut Neil Armstrong, 240,000
miles from Earth, speaks these words to more than a billion
people listening at home: “That’s one small step for a man, one
giant leap for mankind.” Stepping off the lunar module Eagle,
Armstrong became the first human to walk on the surface of
the moon.

   
CARLATA BRADLEY

At the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls, New York, a woman’s
rights convention—the first ever held in the United States—
convened with almost 200 women in attendance.

The convention was organized by Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth
Cady Stanton, two abolitionists who met at the 1840 World Anti-
Slavery Convention in London.

At 9:32 a.m. EDT, Apollo 11, the first U.S. lunar landing mission, 
was launched on a historic journey to the surface of the moon.

After traveling 240,000 miles in 76 hours, Apollo 11 entered into
a lunar orbit on July 19.

The crew of Apollo 11, from left, Neil Armstrong, Michael
Collins and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin in 1969. NASA/AP.

On June 29, 1995, the American space shuttle Atlantis docked
with the Russian space station Mir to form the largest man-
made satellite ever to orbit the Earth.

This historic moment of cooperation between former rival space programs was also the 100th human space mission in American
history.