At 10:56 p.m. ET on July 20, 1969, the American astronaut Neil Armstrong put his left foot on the lunar surface and famously declared, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” In the 50 years since then, many have been eager to hear more about what prompted him to choose those words to be the first spoken on the moon. Was Neil Armstrong inspired by The Hobbit? According to Armstrong biographer James R.