Video: 'President Kennedy's "Moon Address" to Congress, May 25, 1961'

(Thursday, May 25, 1961, 12:30-1:00 p.m. EDT) — U.S. President John F. Kennedy, addressing a joint session of the Congress today, declared “I believe this nation should commit itself, to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the earth.”

Congress would respond with increased funding for the Apollo program; Apollo 11 would land on the Moon, with 164 days left in the 1960s, on July 20, 1969.