6. British journalism’s greatest ever scoops: First Pictures of the Moon’s Surface (Daily Express, 1966)

6. British journalism's greatest ever scoops: First Pictures of the Moon’s Surface (Daily Express, 1966)

In early 1966 the Russians made their first unmanned landing on the moon.

Telemetry signals from the spacecraft were received at the Jodrell Bank observatory in Cheshire and were spotted by a staff member who recognised the data format.

The observatory was able to turn the uncoded data into images of the moon’s surface after borrowing a Mufax telefax printer from the Express Manchester office.

It secured an extraterrestrial front page for the Express, three years before Neil Armstrong would take his “one small step for man”.

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