Mankind first launches itself to the Moon
Three men the first round the Moon and return home
The first human being to reach outer space was Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin in April 1961. Eight years later, in July 1969, American Neil Armstrong became the first man to set foot on our bright night-time companion in the sky.
Just seven months before Armstrong left Earth for the Moon, his NASA colleagues Frank Borman, Bill Anders and Jim Lovell took a similar trip, but without the more glamorous end goal. On 21 December 1968, Apollo 8 left Earth with the intention of being the first crewed spacecraft to reach the Moon.
The three spacemen achieved their goal three Earth days later, orbiting the Moon 10 times, before heading back to the blue and green paradise they called home. They did, however, have time to record this message for us on Christmas Eve 1968:
