The Apollo program was the American space effort that landed the first humans on the Moon. It was given urgency by President John F. Kennedy's 1961 call to land a man on the Moon before the end of the decade, in the context of the Cold War space race with the Soviet Union. The programme suffered a tragedy when a fire killed the Apollo 1 crew in a ground test in 1967. Apollo 8 carried astronauts around the Moon in 1968, and on 20 July 1969 Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the Moon during Apollo 11. Apollo 13 had to abort its landing after an explosion, but the crew returned safely. In all, six missions landed twelve men on the Moon, the last being Apollo 17 in December 1972, and they brought back hundreds of kilograms of lunar samples.
Before and after
- 18 December 1960Birth of Yoon Suk Yeol
- 1961Construction of Sheremetyevo International Airport
- from 1961 to 1966Project Gemini
- 1961Can't Help Falling in Love
- from 1961 to 1972Apollo program
- from 1961 to 1963Vostok programme
- 1961Establishment of Chapada dos Veadeiros National Park
- 1961Establishment of Emas National Park
- from 1961 to 1972Rise of Tupamaros
More in Science & technology
- 25 April 1953Watson and Crick publish the structure of DNA
- 1971Email
- 1973Mobile phone
- 20 November 1985Creation of Microsoft Windows
- July 2000Discovery of livermorium
- 20 October 2004Creation of Ubuntu
The era
This moment belongs to the Contemporary world (1945 CE to today), the world since 1945. You can also browse everything in the 20th century.