A half-century ago, in the middle of a mean year of war, famine, violence in the streets and the widening of the generation gap, men from planet Earth stepped onto another world for the first time, uniting people around the globe in a way not seen before or since.
Hundreds of millions tuned in to radios or watched the grainy black-and-white images on TV as Apollo 11’s Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set foot on the moon on July 20, 1969 , in one of humanity's most glorious technological achievements. Police around the world reported crime came to a near halt that midsummer Sunday night.
We've made a collection of photographs detailing the mission.
Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin before the launch at Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island, Florida AP
Saturn V rocket carrying the Apollo 11 crew launches from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida AP
The Earth as the Apollo 11 mission heads to the moon AP
The surface of the moon as seen from lunar orbit during the Apollo 11 mission The New York Times
Aldrin descends a ladder from the Lunar Module during the Apollo 11 mission AP
Aldrin's boot and bootprint on the moon AP
Aldrin stands next to the Passive Seismic Experiment device on the surface of the moon during the Apollo 11 mission AP
Armstrong, the Apollo 11 commander, inside the Lunar Module after he and Aldrin completed their extravehicular activity on the surface of the moon AP
The Tranquility Base and the US flag are seen from a window on the Lunar Module as Armstrong and Aldrin prepare for liftoff from the surface of the moon AP
The Apollo 11 Lunar Module ascent stage. The Earth rises above the lunar horizon AP
Mission Control in Houston erupts in flag-waving celebration after the safe return to the Earth of the Apollo 11 astronauts The New York Times
President Richard Nixon gives an "OK" sign as he greets Apollo 11 astronauts Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins in a quarantine van AP
People read newspaper coverage of the Apollo 11 moon landing in New York's Rockefeller Center on July 21, 1969 The New York Times
People line 42nd Street in New York to cheer Apollo 11 astronauts AP