On the morning of July 16, 1969, a Saturn V rocket lifted off from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center carrying three astronauts toward the Moon. Four days later, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk on another world while Michael Collins orbited overhead in the Command Module Columbia.
The footage above, restored by NASA from the original tapes, captured Armstrong's first step onto the Sea of Tranquility. The crew spent just under twenty-two hours on the surface and gathered 21.5 kilograms of rock and dust before splashing down in the Pacific on July 24, 1969 — fulfilling President Kennedy's pledge to land a man on the Moon and return him safely to the Earth before the decade was out.