December 27, 1968

Apollo 8 splashes down in the Pacific Ocean ending the first manned space mission to orbit the Moon.

This video identifies the significance of this mission by man. It also features photography of the lunar surface, the Earth as seen from the Moon, and the on-board activities of Astronauts Frank Borman, James "Jim" Lovell, and William "Bill" Anders.

These three men became the first humans to travel beyond low Earth orbit, the first to see Earth as a whole planet, and then the first to directly see the far side of the Moon.

Apollo 8 took three days to travel to the Moon. It orbited ten times over the course of 20 hours, during which the crew made a Christmas Eve television broadcast in which they read the first 10 verses from the Book of Genesis. At the time, the broadcast was the most watched television program ever.