On July 20, 1969, an estimated 650 million people worldwide watched as Neil Armstrong became the first person to walk on the moon.
That's one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind. Armstrong became a global icon overnight.
But few knew the man behind the spacesuit carried a deep pain, the death of his young daughter, a grief that fueled his drive.
Long before Apollo, Armstrong nearly died numerous times in the skies.
This is the story of how a man shaped by tragedy, who cheated death more than once, was destined to become the first to set foot on another world.
Ever since he was a little boy growing up in Ohio, Neil loved planes and wanted to be an aircraft designer. It was a Navy scholarship that opened the door.
Under the Holloway Plan, the Navy funded his aeronautical engineering degree at Purdue University in exchange for three years of military service.
As part of his duties, he learned to land fighter jets on aircraft carriers-the most demanding test of a pilot's skill. He actually didn't stand out as a pilot at first.
One of his instructors noted: "Should be able to continue on in program and make an average pilot." Not someone you'd predict would one day walk on the moon.
But he quietly excelled, and that calm demeanor may have saved his life during the Korean War.
