One Small Step for a Man

The BBC reports:

For nearly 40 years Neil Armstrong has been accused of fluffing his lines during his first steps on the Moon.

On tapes of the Moon landings, he appears to drop the "a" from the famous quote: "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind."

But new analysis of the tapes has proved Mr Armstrong right after all.

...

Mr Armstrong says that he came up with the phrase in the hours between the touchdown of the lunar module and his first steps onto the Moon's surface.

But without the missing "a", the meaning of the quote is lost. In effect, the line means: "That's one small step for mankind, one giant leap for mankind."