That’s 57 years ago, so there is probably someone here who was just a twinkle in his/her daddy’s eye, or too young to remember.

On that date, most Americans (and many others) were watching Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walk on the moon. It was a huge milestone in the “space race”, a milestone in live television, and the first telephone call between the moon and planet Earth. Remember JFK’s speech in 1961?

Now it is time to take longer strides,” he exhorted, “time for a great new American enterprise . . . . I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.”

At the time he gave this speech before Congress in 1961, NASA was not yet three years old. Just a few years later, we were there. Considering the state of technology at the time, it was a bloody miracle!

“one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Neil Armstrong leads Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin and Michael Collins out of the space centre on the Apollo 11 space mission to the moon. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)