Trivia

Astronauts Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin planted a plaque on the lunar surface on July 20, 1969. It reads: "Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon, July 1969 AD. We came in peace for all mankind.".

NASA realized after the Apollo 11 mission had returned to Earth that they had no good pictures of the First Man on the Moon to show to the world. Astronaut Buzz Aldrin said later: "As the sequence of lunar operations evolved, Neil had the camera most of the time, and the majority of pictures taken on the Moon that include an astronaut are of me. It wasn't until we were back on Earth and in the lunar receiving laboratory, looking over the pictures, that we realized there were few pictures of Neil. My fault, perhaps, but we had never simulated this in our training.".

In 1979, while working on his farm in Lebanon, Ohio, he jumped off a grain tractor and his wedding ring was caught in the wheel, severing his ring finger. He managed to calmly collect the finger, pack it in ice and had it reattached by micro surgeons at the Jewish Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky.

A crater on the moon is named Armstrong after him.

For the record, it was Neil Armstrong's left foot that first made contact with the surface of the moon.

He stopped signing autographs in 1994 after finding that many of his signatures were selling for significant amounts of money, and that there were several forgeries in circulation. Since then any requests that were sent to him were answered with a form letter stating that he had stopped signing autographs.

On July 20, 1969, at 10:56 pm EDT, he stepped down from the Lunar Excursion Module Eagle and became the first man to set foot on the moon.

He, Buzz Aldrin and Mike Collins were awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Television at 7021 Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street in Hollywood, California.

NASA Astronaut. Selected in the second group of astronauts. Flew jets during Korean War. Flew X-15 rocket plane. On Gemini 8 in 1966, he flew with Dave Scott conducting the first docking of a manned vehicle with an Agena target vehicle. On Apollo 11 in 1969, with Buzz Aldrin and Mike Collins, became the first men to land on the moon. Retired from NASA in 1970.

In 2005, he became embroiled in a bizarre legal dispute with his longtime barber, Marx Sizemore. Armstrong alleged that after cutting some of his hair, Sizemore sold it to a collector for $3000.00 (US) without his knowledge or consent. Armstrong demanded that if Sizemore did not either return the hair in question or donate the proceeds to a charity of Armstrong's choice, he would take legal action against him. Since Sizemore could not get the hair back, he donated the proceeds to the charity of Armstrong's choosing.

Had three children: Rick Armstrong (born 1957), Karen Armstrong (1959-1961) and Mark Armstrong (born 1963).

On a 1962 episode of I've Got a Secret, his parents appeared as contestants (their secret being their son had just become an astronaut), and host Garry Moore asked his mother how she would feel if he became the first person to land on the Moon.

He was the son of Viola Louise (Engel) and Stephen Koenig Armstrong. His ancestry was over three quarters German, with his other roots being Scots-Irish/Northern Irish, English, Scottish, and Welsh.

The first man to walk on the Moon also holds the record for the greatest distance between target landing area and actual landing: in March 1966, Gemini 8 came down near Okinawa, but the intended target was the Caribbean, a distance of at least eight and a half thousand miles (13,000+ km).

He was an honorary member of the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC).

He was a Brother of Phi Delta Theta Fraternity.

Inducted into the International Aerospace Hall of Fame. (1966)

Inducted into the International Space Hall of Fame. (1976)

Inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame. (1979)

Inducted into the United States Astronaut Hall of Fame. (1993)

Inducted into the Ohio Veterans Hall of Fame. (1993)

He is portrayed by Ryan Gosling in First Man (2018).