The very first words ever spoken by a human being who happened to be on the face of the
moon at the time. The words were spoken by
Neil Armstrong about 250,000 nautical miles from Earth, standing near a large crater dubbed the
sea of tranquility.
The
Apollo 11 mission was the first successful
lunar landing, orchestrated by those miracle workers at
NASA. What began as a
space race between the
US and
Russia and took close to a decade to achieve, culminated with this famous flight, and those famous words. It began with a picture perfect liftoff on July 16th,
1969. There were a few close calls and the usual glitches, but four days later they were on the moon. The phrase "
The Eagle has landed" is another famous phrase that came out of the mouth of Neil Armstrong.
Oh.
Buzz Aldrin and
Michael Collins were also there, but they didn't say anything that later got branded to
T-shirts and sampled into
rap music. There is some dispute as to whether or not he said the "a" but it's just one letter. The above quote is what Armstrong
meant to say according to the NASA.gov website, whether he actually got the "a" out or not, it's rather like
splitting hairs.
The context of the statement is what matters. Armstrong wished to convey that what he did at that moment was perhaps the action of one man;
A man, but the ramifications of that small step meant that Mankind as a whole had successfully accomplished the greatest endeavour it had ever undertaken. It was a statement of both grandeur and humility. Armstrong was refusing to take all the credit. There were many men who helped him achieve that step. He was thanking them with those words.