First Happens Facts

The Apollo 11 plaque left on the Moon says, "Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon July 1969, A.D. / WE CAME IN PEACE FOR ALL MANKIND."

The "countdown" (counting down from 10 for an event such as New-Years Day) was first used in a 1929 German silent film called "Die Frau I’m Monde" (The Girl in the Moon).

Tatum O’Neal is the youngest Oscar winner not to receive a Special Award. O’Neal was just 10 years old when she won the Best Supporting Actress award for Paper Moon. Shirley Temple is the youngest person to win an Academy Award when she was given the Special Award for Outstanding Contribution in 1934 at the age of 6.

Sunday, July 20, 1969: Neil Armstrong was the first man to walk on the moon, Edwin Aldrin was the second. They were members of Apollo 11, and landed in the Sea of Tranquility. The Lunar Excursion Module was named the "Eagle." Michael Collins stayed onboard the mother ship, "Columbia."

On February 6, 1971 the first golf ball was hit on the moon by Alan Shepard.

Astronaut Neil Armstrong first stepped on the moon with his left foot.

In 1963, baseball pitcher Gaylord Perry remarked, "They'll put a man on the moon before I hit a home run." On July 20, 1969, a few hours after Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon, Gaylord Perry hit his first, and only, home run.

In 1959, the Soviet space probe "Luna Two" became the first manmade object to reach the moon as it crashed onto the lunar surface.

George Crum invented potato chips in 1853 at the Moon Lake Lodge in Saratoga Springs, New York. Crum was part Indian, part black, a former guide in the Adirondacks.

Every time the moon's gravity causes a ten-foot tide at sea, all the continents on earth rise at least six inches.

Easter is the first Sunday after the first Full Moon after March 21.

December 1972 U.S. astronaut Eugene CERN an becomes the last person to set foot on the moon.

After the sun, the closest star to Earth is 25,000,000,000,000 miles away.

1959's A Raisin in the Sun was the first play by a black woman to be produced on Broadway.

The oldest works of art are pictures of animals found in caves in Spain and France. They have been dates as far back as 18,000 years ago.