Matrix Founding for Backstories provided by an anonymous donor, the National Dama for the Humanities, and the Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation.

From Virginia Humanities, this is Backstory.

Welcome to Backstory, the show that explains the history behind today's headlines. I'm Brian Balla, and I'm Nathan Connolly.

If you're new to the podcast, we're all historians. And each week, along with our colleagues at Airs and Joanne Freeman, we explore a different aspect of American history.

On September 12, 1962, President John F. Kennedy gave a speech declaring that America would be first to land on the moon, and that it would happen by the end of the decade.

Why some say the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask, why climb the highest mountain? Why 35 years ago? Fly the Atlantic.

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon.

We choose to go to the moon. And do the other things. Not because they are easy, but because they are hard.

Turns out America was up for the task. And when Apollo 11 touched down on the lunar surface 50 years ago, July 20, 1969, the whole country watched as Neil Armstrong uttered those famous words.

At one small step for man. On by a few weeks ago, we asked you our listeners to cast your memories back to that momentous day and share your moon landing experiences. Here's what one listener had to say.

Hi, back story. This is Bob calling from Barbara, Ohio. And my moon landing story, I was six years old, just turned six the previous month.

And the whole family was watching the preparation for the landing rather religiously that week. And on the 20th when they actually touched down, that happened to be my mother's birthday.

My sister is 12 years older than I was, so she would have been 18 at the time, just graduated high school. And Angel Food Cake was my mother's favorite.

So while we were all out in the living room watching them walk around on the moon, my sister was out in the kitchen and decorating this Angel Food Cake.

She did it with quite frosting and then she put these little gel candy rings on it, looking like craters. So we celebrated my mom's birthday with a moon cake while watching the first astronauts walk around on the moon. That was pretty special.

And I'd taken to watching Star Trek with my brother, cheese, some of my earliest memories. My brother is also quite a bit older than I am and he watched Star Trek.

And Lost of Space was on at the time too and I watched that. So I was pretty into space by the time the moon landing happened.

So it all just flew right into that as far as I was concerned. I was excited by the whole thing.

I watched a Star Trek happen in real life right in front of me on the evening news. Looking back, the moon landing represented tremendous progress to this date.

I mean, I carry around in my pocket a computer a million times more powerful than the one that put the thing on the moon. But even with that, we have still not yet, here we are 50 years down the road, we have not yet equaled that achievement, let alone exceeded it.

That is still the pinnacle of human advancement. It's the farthest we've ever gone.

So today on backstory, we celebrate the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 by launching into the history of America's race to the moon.

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