This is one of two stamps issued to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the first successful moon landing, on July 20, 1969. This stamp covered the basic existing rate for Express Mail. Launched July 16, 1969, Apollo 11 made the first manned lunar landing on July 20. As Lieutenant Colonel Michael Collins orbited the moon in the mother ship Columbia, Commander Neil Armstrong and Colonel Edwin Aldrin, Jr., touched down on the Sea of Tranquillity in the lunar module Eagle.

The astronauts announced their landing with the historic report: "Houston, Tranquillity Base here. The Eagle has landed." On the moon, Armstrong and Aldrin raised the American flag and set up scientific instruments, including a laser beam reflector, a seismometer that later transmitted evidence of a moonquake, and a sheet of aluminum foil to trap solar wind particles. The astronauts took photographs of soil and rock and collected samples.