Short answers, pulled from the story.
Luna 2 was the first human-made object to touch the Moon, arriving in 1959 by deliberately crashing into the surface. This was a hard landing performed by the Soviet Union. The United States duplicated the feat in 1962 with Ranger 4.
The first crewed Moon landing was Apollo 11 on the 20th of July 1969, carrying Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the Sea of Tranquility. There were six crewed landings between 1969 and 1972, all conducted by the Apollo program.
Twelve astronauts have walked on the Moon. They reached the surface in pairs across six NASA missions, each flying a Lunar Module while a third crew member remained in the command module. The last to step off was Gene Cernan on Apollo 17 on the 14th of December 1972.
A hard Moon landing decelerates to less than about 160 kilometers per hour and uses a ruggedized craft to survive the impact, while a soft landing slows to negligible speed at contact. A soft landing is the only option for humans. The Moon's escape velocity is 2.38 kilometers per second, nearly all of which must be shed for a soft landing.
After Luna 24 in 1976 there were no soft landings without significant damage until Chang'e 3 in 2013, a gap of thirty-seven years. The Apollo program ended in December 1972 and the Soviet robotic effort wound down after Luna 24. China's Chang'e 3 broke the drought with the first lunar soft landing since 1976.
Five nations have successfully achieved soft landings on the Moon: the Soviet Union, the United States, China, India, and Japan. India became the fourth with Chandrayaan-3 on the 23rd of August 2023, and Japan became the fifth with the SLIM lander on the 19th of January 2024.
Intuitive Machines' Odysseus became the first privately owned spacecraft to land on the Moon in February 2024, though a broken leg left it tilted at 18 degrees. Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost made the first fully successful commercial landing on the 2nd of March 2025, operating for 14 days near Mons Latreille in Mare Crisium.