Apollo 11

John F. Kennedy challenged the US to accomplish what seemed impossible: put men on the lunar surface by the end of 1960s

It will not be one man going to the moon . . . it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there. -PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY, MAY 25, 1961

Slideshow of Apollo 11 Photos

Matthew Palatnik | Summer 2019

In honor of the 50th Anniversary of the epic voyage of Apollo 11 to the Moon 50 years ago this summer, we combed the NASA archives to compile this slideshow of extraordinary images from the trip. Many of the photos have rarely been seen. Click on the photo below to start the slideshow.

Remembering Neil Armstrong

Richard Truly | Summer 2019

The first man to set foot on the Moon 50 years ago this summer is remembered by his friend and colleague, a former astronaut and administrator at NASA.

Shooting the Moon

Walter A. McDougall | Winter 2010

Practical, rather than idealistic, reasons pushed President Kennedy to challenge America to land a man on the moon within the decade.

Gazing up at the Texas night sky from his ranch, Senator Lyndon B. Johnson did not know what to make of Sputnik I, the first artificial Earth satellite launched into orbit by a Soviet missile on October 4, 1957. But an aide’s memorandum stoked his political juices.

My Moon Shot in Lebanon, Ohio

The Readers | July/August 1999

Fast Forward

Richard F. Snow | July/August 1994

It is always a bit surprising to be reminded of how compressed our national history is. Robert E.

Doorway to Space

Ray Smith | November 1990

As I watched the lunar landing on television, my part in the whole scenario took on a new meaning.

It’s hard to believe that an entire generation has reached adulthood since that day twenty-one years ago when the world watched those grainy television images of two American astronauts cavorting on the moon.

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Featured Authors

Ambrose, Stephen E.

Stephen E. Ambrose (1936-2002) was a historian and professor who wrote on military history, presidential history, and American expansion and foreign policy. Ambrose has been praised for his biographies of Presidents Eisenhower and Nixon, and for helping to galvanize interest in World War II.

Atkinson, Rick

Rick Atkinson is the author of dozens of best-selling books on American military history, including The Long Gray Line, a narrative saga about the West Point class of 1966; Crusade, a narrative history of the Persian Gulf War, and In the Company of Soldiers, an account of his time with General David H. Petraeus and the 101st Airborne Division during the invasion of Iraq in 2003. He has also written a three-part narrative history of the U.S.

Bird, Kai

Kai Bird is a historian and Executive Director of Leon Levy Center for Biography at the City University of New York. He is best known for writing about the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Vietnam War, US-Middle East relations and biographies of political figures. Bird is the author of American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, for which he won a Pulitzer Prize, and The Good Spy: The Life and Death of Robert Ames, a New York Times bestseller. His most recent book is The Outlier: The Unfinished Presidency of Jimmy Carter.

Blight, David W.

David W. Blight is the Class of 1954 Professor of American History and Director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance & Abolition at Yale University. Recently, Blight has written A Slave No More: Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom, Including Their Narratives of Emancipation, and Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory, which won the Bancroft Prize, the Abraham Lincoln Prize, and the Frederick Douglass Prize.

Brands, H. W.

H. W. Brands is a best-selling author, historian, and the Jack S. Blanton Sr. Chair at the University of Texas at Austin. He has written thirty books, including The Zealot and the Emancipator, a dual biography of the abolitionist John Brown and President Abraham Lincoln, as well as The First American and Traitor to His Class, both finalists for the Pulitzer Prize and the Los Angeles Times Prize.