Historians have long since settled the question of the first person on the Moon: Neil Alden Armstrong, who stepped off the ladder of the Lunar Module Eagle onto the Sea of Tranquility at 02:56:15 UTC on 21 July 1969 (10:56:15 p.m. EDT on 20 July), about 6 hours and 39 minutes after touchdown. His first words — ‘That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind’ — were broadcast to an estimated 650 million viewers.
Armstrong was born on August 5, 1930, in Wapakoneta, Ohio. He flew 78 combat missions in the Korean War as a Navy fighter pilot, then became a civilian test pilot at the NACA’s High-Speed Flight Station at Edwards. He flew the X-15 seven times, reaching Mach 5.7. He was selected as a NASA astronaut in 1962, commanded the Gemini 8 mission in March 1966 (the first successful docking of two spacecraft in orbit), and was chosen as commander of Apollo 11 in late 1968.
Armstrong resigned from NASA in August 1971, less than two years after the landing, and joined the University of Cincinnati as a professor of aerospace engineering. He was a reluctant celebrity and a private figure for the rest of his life. He died on August 25, 2012, at 82, from complications of cardiovascular procedures, and was buried at sea by the U.S. Navy on the USS Philippine Sea.
For the rest of the Apollo article and the space race overview.