6:19 – 6:37 AM Italian time: Armstrong and Aldrin place seven carefully selected experiments on the lunar surface from thousands of proposals; the most famous is the LRRR or Lrcubed: a series of mirrors designed to reflect a laser beam from planet Earth back to the sender; this experiment still allows the Earth-Moon distance to be measured to within a centimeter; the other LRRRs left on the Moon are those of Apollo 14 and 15.

6:02 am Italian time: Armstrong and Aldrin leave on the lunar soil the so-called “mementos”, namely: two Soviet medals in honor of Yuri Gagarin who died in March 1968 and of Vladimir Komarov who was killed during the re-entry of Soyuz 1 due to the failure of the parachute to open, a patch commemorating Gus Grissom, Ed White, Roger Chaffee who died in the Apollo 1 fire, and an olive branch to signify the peaceful nature of the landing.

Planetary exploration of the Solar System begins.

By the time NASA landed on the Moon, it had already purchased a million integrated circuits for the Apollo missions alone, contributing to the development of the technology and reducing production costs. The first integrated circuits purchased by NASA cost $1,000; by the end of the program, they cost $20; those for the Minuteman II initially cost $50 in 1962, and only $2 in 1968. This would pave the way for a myriad of commercial applications that would revolutionize the world.

protest march of Black Americans, led by Dr. Abernathy, Martin Luther King’s successor, arrives at the gates of Cape Kennedy: “Beyond that gate is the pride of America, on this side is the shame of America.” Thomas Paine of NASA responds, “If it were possible not to push the button and thereby solve the problem of poverty, believe me, I would.” Thomas Paine then agrees to admit ten Black families of protesters into the VIP galleries. Sixty Blacks will sit, quench their thirst, and eat in the VIP gallery, not far from former President Johnson.

The state of El Salvador militarily invades Honduras. The problems began on June 6, 1969, when El Salvador lost a soccer match (!) against Honduras; a fan committed suicide and was granted a state funeral. El Salvador then won the return match of the North American World Cup qualifiers. El Salvador also won the playoffs, and Honduras broke off diplomatic relations. On July 18, an armistice was signed, but peace wouldn’t come until 1980 (!).

As the Saturn V heads for the launch pad, the gigantic N-1 explodes during launch at Baikonur in the USSR; it is the second launch of the gigantic rocket. The Kremlin does not make the incident public, but it is discovered by the top-secret American CORONA spy satellites in August 1969, which clearly show the ruins of the launch pad (the explosion was estimated at 0.25 kton). The news does not reach the Western press until November 1969, but the Kremlin does not even admit the existence of the N-1 program until the fall of the USSR in August 1991. Before the rocket even lifts off, a piece of steel enters one of the pumps, setting it on fire and shutting down four engines. Then a liquid oxygen pipe ruptures, shutting down a fifth engine. The computer shuts everything down at 10 seconds. The N-1 begins to fall back onto the launch pad. Incredibly, the adjacent ramp with its N-1 is unaffected by the tremendous explosion.

Another Soviet UR-500/Proton launcher carrying a lunar sample return rover explodes on launch.

The Saturn V (Saturn V SA-506) of the Apollo 11 mission moves slowly toward the launch pad

AMD (Advanced Micro Devices) is founded by Jerry Sanders. Sanders had previously worked at Fairchild Semiconductor, where he met giants like Noyce, Moore, and Andy Grove, and then founded Intel. He finally founded AMD in 1969, only to spend three decades in court over intellectual property disputes with Intel.

Lawrence Joseph Giacoletto, in the United States, develops an effective high-frequency small-signal model of transistors, also known as the Giacoletto-Johnson model.

Uprising in Tibet against Chinese occupation

Golda Meir Israeli Prime Minister

Buzz Aldrin flies the KC-135 (also known as the Vomit Comet) 79 times in a single day, a new record. Everyone vomits, except Buzz.

In January 1969, the Lunokhod program, designed by the Lavochkin Laboratory under the leadership of Oleg Ivanovsky, was approved. Its original purpose was to pave the way for a manned landing. The same Lavochkin bureau also designed the Lunar Sample Return program. A first attempt to launch a Lunokhod took place on February 23, 1969, but the Proton exploded 50 seconds after launch. For days, a search was conducted for the radioactive polonium that would have kept the Lunokhod warm. It was found by local soldiers, who, unaware of the danger, used it to keep warm during the winter. Incredibly, the entire rover was found almost intact. On July 13, 1969 (a few days before Apollo 11), the Proton successfully launched Luna 15 (the lunar sample return). It arrives in the wrong lunar orbit, then it is corrected, on July 21 (when Armstrong sets foot on the Moon) it tries to land not far from the Sea of Tranquility, and contact is lost, reported live from the English listening post at Jodrell Bank.

The Muchison meteorite, a carbonaceous chondrite (i.e., non-ferrous and carbon-rich), fell in Australia; analysis of its interior revealed 74 amino acids, eight of which (out of 20) are also present on Earth, all five nitrogenous bases that make up DNA, and numerous alien amino acids, some more complex than those on Earth, with up to five carbon atoms. Analysis of other carbonaceous chondrites confirmed the presence of amino acids, with a slight prevalence of left-handed over right-handed amino acids (life on Earth uses exclusively left-handed amino acids).

Apollo 8: First night of the Apollo 8 mission. Frank Borman can’t sleep. After two hours of coughing, he takes a sleeping pill. Two hours later, he wakes up having convulsions with diarrhea and vomiting. It’s space sickness (and therefore not contagious), but the doctors on the ground fear a virus that could incapacitate the entire crew. Then there’s another problem: on Earth, that stuff ends up on the ground, while at zero-g, it stays in the air, and even when everything is cleaned, you can’t open the windows to let in air… After this initial scare, Frank Borman actually turns out to be an excellent mission leader for the crew.

Apollo 8 (Saturn V SA-503): Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders make the first manned flight around the Moon; for the first time, man leaves Earth’s orbit; they complete 10 orbits around the Moon for a total of 20 hours and 7 minutes in lunar orbit; the Saturn V is the D model.

It was the true climax of the Moon race. The Soviets could have beaten the Americans to the manned flight around the Moon. Their launch window opened on December 7, 1968. But the failure of Zond 6 thwarted this possibility. Even the Proton was not yet considered safe. But the Americans didn’t know this, and US warships entered the Black Sea to keep watch on Yevpatoria, and Baikonur was monitored daily by CORONA spy satellites. The Soviets considered Apollo 8 a huge gamble on the part of the US. After its success, admiration for the mission spread. The Soviet belief that they could now surpass the Americans began to wane. On January 8, 1969, a joint meeting of the Communist Party and Ministers decided to continue with L-1, LK, and N-1 (even though both had now been surpassed by the Apollo program), and to accelerate the automatic missions to Mars and Venus, and the space station.

The Soviet Union sends Zond 5 into lunar orbit.