After undergoing cardiac bypass surgery inAugust of 2012, Neil Armstrong seemed to be recovering just fine, at which point reportedlysome of his nurses removed wires that had been temporarily attached to his pacemaker. What followed was internal bleeding which,in turn, led doctors to drain the blood instead of choosing to operate to stop the bleeding. Ultimately he died today in history, August25, 2012, at the age of 82. What followed was a legal battle that eventuallysaw the hospital threatened with having the details of the lawsuit publicized if theydidn’t pay a settlement. The hospital then gave in, with some amongArmstrong’s family receiving portions of a $6 million settlement for alleged malpracticeon the part of the hospital workers. The details of what exactly occurred in Armstrong’slast days have largely been kept out of the public eye owing to a non-disclosure agreementas a stipulation of the settlement. That said, Armstrong’s wife, Carol, wasvery public about her opposition of the lawsuit in the first place, noting Neil would nothave approved of it, with Carol further saying in an interview, “I wasn’t part of it. I want that for the record.” Whatever happened exactly, after Armstrong’sdeath, then President Obama stated, “Neil was among the greatest of American heroes— not just of his time, but of all time. When he and his fellow crew members liftedoff aboard Apollo 11 in 1969, they carried with them the aspirations of an entire nation. They set out to show the world that the Americanspirit can see beyond what seems unimaginable — that with enough drive and ingenuity,anything is possible. And when Neil stepped foot on the surfaceof the moon for the first time, he delivered a moment of human achievement that will neverbe forgotten.” So how did Neil Armstrong come to be one ofthe most legendary explorers in human history? Funny enough, it all started with his lateapplication being clandestinely slipped into the application pile when it technically shouldnot have been. You see, Armstrong turned his applicationin to NASA about a week after the June 1, 1962 deadline, making him ineligible for thathistoric second round of astronaut hirings. Lucky for Armstrong, Dick Day, who was theone to encourage Armstrong to apply in the first place and was working at NASA as theassistant head of Flight Crew Operations, clandestinely slipped Armstrong’s applicationinto the candidate resume folders before the applications were reviewed by the selectionpanel. Said Day, “I really don’t know why Neildelayed his application, but he did, and all the applications came to me, since I was thehead of flight crew training. But he had done so many things so well atEdwards. He was so far and away the best qualified,more than any other, certainly as compared to the first group of astronauts. We [Day and Walt Williams] wanted him in.” It has been speculated since, whether accuratelyor not is anyone’s guess, that the lateness of the application may have had somethingto do with Armstrong’s two year old daughter, Karen, tragically dying a few months earlierfrom complications due to a tumor growing on her brain stem. Whatever the case, as for his qualifications,Armstrong had been a pilot since 16 years old and ultimately flew a whopping 78 combatmissions during the Korean War. In one mission, he had part of a wing shearedoff by a cable booby trap about 500 feet above the ground, all while under heavy fire. He managed to keep the plane in the air longenough to get away, but eventually had to eject, at which point he was rescued by afellow Navy flier in a Jeep, funny enough. During College, beyond writing and directingtwo musicals, on the side, he earned both a bachelor’s of science in aeronauticalengineering and later a master’s of science in Aerospace engineering. He followed all that up by becoming a testpilot, flying over 200 different aircraft models, including the rocket powered variety,in the process quickly becoming considered one of the top pilots in the world. Once he was tabbed to become an astronaut,out of a group of 29 astronauts that trained for the Apollo mission to the moon, only threewere chosen for the planned first Moon landing mission when the final announcement was madein January of 1969. Neil Armstrong, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, andthe oft forgotten Michael Collins became the official crew of Apollo 11. Immediately, attention turned to which crewmember - Armstrong or Aldrin -- would be the first to walk on the moon (Collins was thecommand module pilot and, therefore, was ineligible). Even though both men were going to walk onthe moon, it was a great honor to be the first. In fact, the question was asked at the pressconference and the response was that it had yet to be decided. Over the next four months, as the astronautscontinued their training, debate and rumors circulated among the media. At first, it seemed that Aldrin would havethe honor. This speculation came from the precedent setby the Gemini program, which made ten crewed flights for the purpose of testing ships andastronauts to spacewalk. During the flights, the commander (which Armstrongwas to be for Apollo 11) stayed inside the ship while the pilot (which Aldrin was tobe for Apollo 11) did the space walking. Further fueling this thinking was that itwas rumored that Aldrin was actively campaigning to be the guy. According to the memoir written by Chris Kraft,head of Mission Control, “Buzz Aldrin desperately wanted that honor and wasn't quiet in lettingit be known.” In April, only three months before liftoff,it was announced that Neil Armstrong would be the first man to walk on the moon. The main reason NASA gave for the decisionwas that the Eagle’s hatch opened to one side - rather than up or down - and that sidewas towards the pilot, Aldrin. The bottom line was that when the hatch wasopened, the commander, Armstrong, had a clear path to exit, while the pilot was pinned inthe rather cramped space of the module. By a sheer happenstance, it made more sensefor Armstrong to exit first. Plus, as NASA’s heads pointed out, Armstrongwas actually the more senior member of the team anyway, having entered the program in1962, while Aldrin came in 1963. In later years, despite the official hatchstory, some, including Kraft and fellow astronaut Al Bean of have come out and said that NASAwanted Armstrong to have this honor rather than Aldrin because they thought Neil’sego could handle it better than Aldrin's. So perhaps the hatch design simply gave themthe excuse they needed. Whatever the case, when he stepped out onthe moon, Armstrong spoke some of the most famous words in the history of mankind, "That'sone small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." So true, so brilliant, so inspirational yet...socontradicting? The word "man" and "mankind" are used synonymously,meaning that the oh-so-famous quote quite simply put was, "That's one small step forman, one giant leap for man." So which was it Neil??? A one-lettered indefinite article is all itwould take to turn this quote into the inspirational words our brains all process when we hearthem. That article is "a"- "One small step for "a"man, one giant leap for mankind." That is how most people interpret his wordsand, according to Neil Armstrong, those are the words he intended to speak. NASA's official transcript of the quote stillshows the "a" in parentheses, "That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap formankind." This is because the "a" is not audible inthe broadcast. For years, both NASA and Armstrong insistedthat static had obscured the "a". Armstrong himself stated that he would nevermake such a mistake (omitting such an important part) but after listening to recordings ofhis quote, finally conceded that it's possible that he may not have said the "a". When he admitted this, he stated, "I wouldhope that history would grant me leeway for dropping the syllable and understand thatit was certainly intended, even if it was not said—although it might actually havebeen". An Australia-based computer programmer namedPater Shann Ford conducted a digital audio analysis to support Armstrong's claim thathe did say "a" and concluded that he did, in fact, say "a man", but the "a" was inaudibledue to technological limitations of the time. However, linguists David Beaver and Mark Libermanwrote their own digital audio analysis of the infamous quote on Language Log blog andconcluded that, "The acoustic evidence seems to be against Ford's theory." But that's not the end of the story. Support for Armstrong has been found in ateam of researchers from Michigan State University and Ohio State University who have concludedthat Armstrong did indeed speak the words he claims to have spoken but static or technologicallimitations are not to blame for its apparent omission. According to them, Armstrong's Ohion accentis to blame y'all. According to a Michigan State University specialistin communicative sciences, assistant professor Laura Diller, because of the dialect of hishometown, if Neil Armstrong did voice the word "a", it was short and fully acousticallyblended with the preceding word "for". The Acoustical Society of America's articleon this topic states that, “Dilley and her colleagues, who includeMSU linguist Melissa Baese-Berk and OSU psychologist Mark Pitt, thought they might be able to figureout what Armstrong said with a statistical analysis of the duration of the 'r' soundas spoken by native central Ohioans saying 'for' and 'for a' in natural conversation. They used a collection of recordings of conversationalspeech from 40 people raised in Columbus, Ohio, near Armstrong’s native town of Wapakoneta. Within this body of recordings, they found191 cases of 'for a'. They matched each of these to an instanceof 'for' as said by the same speaker and compared the relative duration. They also examined the duration of Armstrong’s'for (a') from the lunar transmission. The researchers found a large overlap betweenthe relative duration of the 'r' sound in 'for' and 'for a' using the Ohio speech data. The duration of the 'frrr(uh)' in Armstrong’srecording was 0.127 seconds, which falls into the middle of this overlap, though it is aslightly better match for an 'a'-less 'for'. In other words, the researchers conclude,the lunar landing quote is highly compatible with either possible interpretation, thoughit is probably slightly more likely to be perceived as 'for' regardless of what Armstrongactually said. Dilley says there may have been a 'perfectstorm of conditions' for the word 'a' to have been spoken but not heard.” This might all have you wondering if Armstronghad previously planned his famous line, or it came to him while sitting on the Moon. Even until his last breath in 2012, Armstrongadamantly insisted that his first line was spontaneous and was only settled on in themoments prior to the walk. A BBC documentary released after the astronaut’sdeath disputes that. In the film, Dean Armstrong - Neil’s brother- tells the story of a note passed during a late-night game of Risk (Nobody can sayastronauts didn’t know how to party…. But, like, seriously, go check out our videoDon Draper in a Space Suit on the TodayIFoundOut channel. Many astronauts did little else but trainand party extremely hard every other second of the day, with that side of their livesgenerally carefully kept out of the public eye.) In any event, in the months leading up tothe mission, Dean, Neil, and their families spent time together on Cape Cod. After both men put their boys to bed, Neilchallenged his younger brother to a hearty game of Risk. During that game, Neil handed Dean a pieceof paper: "On that piece of paper there was 'That'sone small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.' 'He says, 'What do you think about that?' I said 'fabulous.' He said, 'I thought you might like that, butI wanted you to read it." That said, both Aldrin and Collins made itclear that at no point did Armstrong share his thoughts about what he would say withthem. Of course, perhaps his brother was an exception. Although, given the second thing he said onthe Moon was far less eloquent, seemingly there was some prep. As for that second thing, according to theofficial Apollo 11 Air to Ground Voice Transcription, it was “And the – the surface is fineand powdery.” Armstrong continued on this line of thinking,“I can – I can pick it up loosely with my toe. It does adhere in fine layers like powderedcharcoal to the sole and sides of my boots. I only go in a small fraction of an inch,maybe an eighth of an inch, but I can see the footprints of my boots and the treadsin the fine, sandy particles.” After coming back to Earth and spending acouple weeks in quarantine to make sure no one from the crew had picked up any diseasesfrom the aliens they encountered on the Moon, Armstrong then went on a major publicity tourpromoting NASA and the lizard people agenda, served as the Deputy Associate Administratorfor Aeronautics for the Office of Advanced Research and Technology, and then, not longafter in 1971, left NASA. From there, Armstrong lived a mostly quietlife. Said John Glenn of this, "[Armstrong] didn'tfeel that he should be out huckstering himself. He was a humble person, and that's the wayhe remained after his lunar flight, as well as before." Beyond keeping a mostly low profile, he, amongother things, taught aerospace engineering at the University of Cincinnati, helped investigatespaceflight accidents and acted as a spokesman and/or board member for various businesses. Ever the explorer, in 1985, Armstrong wenton a little trip with Edmund Hillary (the first person, along with Tenzing Norgay, tosummit Mount Everest), Steve Fossett (first person to fly around the world nonstop, doingit in a balloon and separately in an airplane), and Patrick Morrow (the first person to summiteach of the tallest mountains on Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica,Europe, and Australia). What did this prestigious group decide todo together? To take a jaunt to the North Pole, presumablyusing Armstrong’s connection with NASA to get access, given NASA closely guards theice wall there, keeping it from the public eye in order to maintain the deception thatthe Earth isn’t flat as is plain as day to anyone with eyes... For more on this, go see the video on oursister channel, TodayIFoundOut titled: Why Do People Think the Earth is Flat? Bonus Facts:When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped onto the Moon all those years ago, literallyeverything they did became a record because everything they did that day was the firsttime in human history someone had done that thing on the Moon. For example, after Aldrin joined Armstrongon the surface of the Moon, the pair became the first to hop like a Kangaroo on the moon...for science! You see, NASA wasn't entirely sure about howastronauts would be able to move around on the Moon since they could only theorise abouthow the lower gravity would affect their movement and balance. As such, the pair were asked to experimentwith different ways of moving to discern the most efficient method of getting from pointA to point B for future astronauts. Initially, NASA had assumed that the bestway to move around on the Moon would be to use small, double-footed jumps not unlikea kangaroo. However, Aldrin and Armstrong found this wayof moving to quote, "awkward and unnatural" and both astronauts found it much easier tomove in a more conventional manner, hopping from one foot to the other. Armstrong nicknamed this way of moving "thelope". As for the first full meal on the Moon, thisconsisted of bacon, cookies and coffee, along with some peaches and a glass of grapefruitjuice. If you hoped the bacon part of the meal wasthe first item eaten on the Moon, we're sorry to disappoint. Contrary to what you'll often read, in fact,a very small something was eaten shortly before the meal- communion bread, eaten by Buzz Aldrinshortly after landing on the surface. Before Aldrin set off on the Apollo 11 mission,he took with him a small communion kit given to him by Rev Dean Woodruff, so that he couldsymbolically take part in the ceremony with the other members of his Presbyterian church. This kit contained a small piece of communionbread and a small vial of wine, both of which Aldrin consumed after saying a prayer duringthe Apollo 11 radio blackout. This was also, unsurprisingly, the first religiousservice held on the Moon. Aldrin had initially planned to share hisCommunion prayer with the people of Earth, but NASA requested at the last minute thathe not do this in order to avoid offending people not of the Christian faith, as hadhappened when the crew of Apollo 8 had read a passage from Genesis. Aldrin agreed and instead performed the ceremonyprivately while Armstrong "respectfully observed". Aldrin also took another interesting firstfrom Armstrong- Buzz managed to become the first person to urinate on the Moon. Take THAT Mr. "too cool for school gets towalk and talk on the Moon first-Armstrong". And if you’re thinking just now this isn’tnearly as brave as being the first to step out onto the moon and the black void of space,you should probably know that the urine collection system on the Lunar Module had to be pressurized. To ensure that the astronauts weren’t… injured… while peeing, it was noted in theApollo Experience Report that “a prime urine-transfer design constraint for the Lunar Module wasthat the crewmen would be protected at all times from pressure differentials…” This system, however, was a little buggy atfirst... NASA engineers being NASA engineers, theyworked out the kinks in the end. But let’s not discount the bravery of beingthe first to use the extreme suction device on the lem. Speaking of Buzz, Aldrin’s mother’s name,before getting married, was Marion Moon. As for his nickname of “Buzz”, Edwin EugeneAldrin got that name due to one of his older sisters, Fay Ann Aldrin mispronouncing “brother”as “buzzer.” (She was a year and a half old when Buzz wasborn.) Rather than call him “Jr.” or the like(his father’s name was also Edwin Eugene Aldrin), “Buzzer” was shortened to “Buzz”and became his chosen moniker for the rest of his life. In 1988, Aldrin even made it official by legallychanging his first name to “Buzz.”