This stamp marks the successful flight of man's first flight to the Moon. Three astronauts aboard the Apollo 8 space capsule in December 1968 left Earth and circumnavigated the Moon on Christmas Eve and returned home successfully.
Its central design is an Earth view from the Moon taken from the Apollo 8 capsule and the stamp has a quote from the Holy Bible: "In the beginning God.......".
On Christmas eve the 3 Apollo 8 astronauts read from the Holy Bible as they circled the Moon.
This stamp was issued on May 5, 1969, the 8th anniversary of the first U.S. manned space flight by astronaut Alan Shepard in 1961.
