Today in History, July 20th
On July 20, 1969, Apollo 11 landed on the moon and Neil Armstrong walked on its surface. Plus the July Plot against Hitler and Viking 1 on Mars.
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July 20 is best known for 1969, when Apollo 11’s lunar module landed on the moon and Neil Armstrong became the first person to walk on its surface. The date also saw a failed bomb plot against Adolf Hitler in 1944 and NASA’s Viking 1 lander touch down on Mars in 1976.
The big story: Humans walk on the moon (1969)
At 4:18 p.m. EDT on July 20, 1969, the lunar module Eagle settled onto the southwestern edge of the Sea of Tranquility, and Neil Armstrong radioed that “the Eagle has landed.” Michael Collins circled overhead in the command module while Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin Jr. got ready to go outside. The hatch opened at 10:39 p.m., and at 10:56 p.m. Armstrong stepped down and delivered his line about one small step and one giant leap. He later said the word “a” got lost in transmission before “man.” Aldrin joined him at 11:11 p.m. More than a billion people followed along at home. The two planted a U.S. flag and left a plaque saying they had come in peace for all mankind. Eagle lifted off the next afternoon and rejoined Collins, and the crew splashed down in the Pacific on July 24. The space race had found its finish line.
More events on July 20
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1402 | The conqueror Timur defeated Ottoman sultan Bayezid I at the Battle of Ankara. |
| 1881 | The Lakota leader Sitting Bull surrendered to the U.S. Army. |
| 1894 | The Pullman Strike ended shortly after President Grover Cleveland sent federal troops to Chicago. |
| 1917 | The Corfu Declaration called for a single, unified Yugoslav state. |
| 1923 | Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa was shot dead while driving through Parral, Mexico. |
| 1944 | German officers tried to kill Adolf Hitler with a bomb in the July Plot; he survived. |
| 1948 | President Harry Truman put a peacetime military draft in place as Cold War tensions grew. |
| 1968 | The first Special Olympics opened at Chicago’s Soldier Field with about 1,000 athletes. |
| 1976 | NASA’s Viking 1 lander touched down on Mars at Chryse Planitia. |
| 1977 | A flash flood killed 84 people in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. |
| 1988 | The action movie Die Hard opened in U.S. theaters. |
| 2012 | A gunman killed 12 people at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. |
Born on July 20
- 1933: Cormac McCarthy, American novelist in the Southern gothic tradition, born in Providence, Rhode Island.
- 1938: Natalie Wood, American actress who went from child star to adult film career, born in San Francisco.
- 1947: Carlos Santana, Mexican-born American guitarist who fused rock, jazz, blues and Afro-Cuban rhythms, born in Autlán de Navarro, Mexico.
Sources
- Armstrong walks on moon, History.com
- This Day in History: July 20, History.com
- On This Day: July 20, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Cormac McCarthy, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Natalie Wood, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Carlos Santana, Encyclopaedia Britannica
Reblogged this on Practically Historical.