Apollo 11 (Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins) lifts off from Cape Kennedy in Florida towards the first manned landing on the Moon. July 19 Chappaquiddick incident: US Senator Edward M. Kennedy drives off a bridge into a tidal pond after leaving a party on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts, killing Mary Jo Kopechne. Kennedy does not report the accident for nine or ten hours. John Fairfax lands in Hollywood Beach, Florida, United States and becomes the first person to row across an ocean solo, after 180 days spent at sea on board the 25' ocean rowboat Britannia (left Gran Canaria on January 20, 1969). July 20 Apollo program Moon landing: At 3:17 pm ET (20:17 UTC) Apollo 11's Lunar Module Eagle lands on the Moon's surface. At 10:56 pm ET (02:56 UTC July 21), an estimated 650 million people worldwide, the largest television audience for a live broadcast at this time, watch in awe as Neil Armstrong takes his first historic steps on the surface. 1969 Tour de France: Belgian Eddy Merckx wins the cycle race for the first time. July 22 – Spanish dictator and head of state Francisco Franco appoints Prince Juan Carlos to be his successor as head of state following his death. July 24 Apollo 11 returns from the first successful Moon landing and the astronauts are placed in biological isolation for several days in case they may have brought back lunar germs. The airless lunar environment is later determined to rule out microscopic life. The Soviet Union returns British lecturer Gerald Brooke to the United Kingdom freed from a Soviet prison in exchange for their spies Peter and Helen Kroger (Morris and Lona Cohen). July 26 – A 6.4 earthquake shakes the Chinese city of Yangjiang destroying thousands of homes and killing 3,000 people. July 30 – Vietnam War: U.S. President Richard Nixon makes an unscheduled visit to South Vietnam, meeting with President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu and U.S. military commanders. July 31 – Pope Paul VI arrives in Entebbe, Uganda for the first visit by a reigning Pope to Africa. August August 2 – U.S. President Richard Nixon visits Romania, becoming the first incumbent U.S. president to visit a communist state, since the start of the Cold War. August 4 – Vietnam War: At the apartment of French intermediary Jean Sainteny in Paris, U.S. representative Henry Kissinger and North Vietnamese representative Xuan Thuy begin secret peace