Neil Armstrong

Neil Armstrong was born on August 5, 1930 in Wapakoneta, Ohio, USA as Neil Alden Armstrong. He was married to Carol Held Knight and Janet Armstrong.

He had three children: Rick Armstrong (born 1957), Karen (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.

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 Michael Collins, became the first men to land on the moon. Retired from NASA in 1970.

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.".

Inducted into the International Space Hall of Fame in 1976.

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.

He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7021 Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street in Hollywood, California on January 14, 1993.

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.

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.