Neil Armstrong's Memorable Commencement Speech - Education - GOOD

Neil Armstrong's Memorable Commencement Speech - Education - GOOD:

Neil Armstrong's Memorable Commencement Speech

by Liz Dwyer

The words "hero" and "icon" don't do justice to Neil Armstrong, the commander of NASA's Apollo 11 space flight and the first man on the moon. Indeed, Armstrong, who passed away on Saturday at the age of 82 uttered one of the most memorable statements of all time: "That’s one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind." That famous line, the first ever transmitted from the moon to Earth, inspired millions. In a 2005 commencement address (PDF) at his graduate alma mater, the University of Southern California, Armstrong showed that his ability to inspire and offer some much-needed perspective had endured.
Armstrong, who was born in 1930 and began studying aerospace engineering at Purdue University in 1947—he