July 16th is the 40th anniversary of the lift-off of Apollo 11, the first manned space mission to land on the Moon. It was the fifth human spaceflight of Project Apollo and the third human voyage to the Moon.
It carried Mission Commander Neil Armstrong, Command Module Pilot Michael Collins and Lunar Module Pilot Buzz Aldrin. On 20 July, Armstrong and Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the Moon, while Collins orbited above.
The mission fulfilled President John F Kennedy's goal of reaching the moon by the end of the 1960s, which he expressed during a speech given before a joint session of Congress on 25 May 1961:
'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.'