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The earliest attempts at Mars exploration were made by the soviets and NASA in the 60s (largely unsuccessful IIRC). In 1976 NASA successfully landed on the Mars (Viking I) and, even more amazingly, sent back color photos.

Curiosity is a great mission, but I'm still more impressed with the Viking missions.

Wait and see.

The Soviet Mars-2 and Mars-3 missions were quite successful (orbiting and landing). Here is a gallery of mars images 1971-1974[1]

The soviets were also the first to land on Luna in 1966 [2] and on Venus in 1975[3]

[1]http://www.mentallandscape.com/C_CatalogMars.htm

[2]http://www.mentallandscape.com/C_CatalogMoon.htm

[3]http://www.mentallandscape.com/C_CatalogVenus.htm

Humans got to mars? I should pay more attention.

you know what i mean.

Yes, humans got to Mars. Just not in person.

the lack of basic knowledge about human achievement in space is depressing