He was born in Ohio and grew up in several different locations in that state.
Neil Armstrong discovered his passion for flying when he was 2 years old. His father used to take him to the Cleveland National Air Races. When he was young he would help his parents around the house like weeding the garden and hanging the laundry, he would do this with his sister June and brother Dean. Neil Armstrong also loved reading books. In the first grade, he read 90 books. Because of this, he skipped the second grade.
He took his first airplane ride at age 6. He built model airplanes and conducted experiments in a homemade wind tunnel. He worked at a pharmacy and took flying lessons. He was licensed to fly at 16, before he got his driver's license. Armstrong enrolled in Purdue University to study aeronautical engineering but was called to duty with the U.S. Navy in 1949