As any Pink Floyd fan should be able to tell you, there is no dark side of the Moon. All parts of the Moon's surface (except possibly the poles, if you're being even more pedantic than me) are lit by the Sun at different times. The Apollo 8 astronauts were the first people to see the far side of the Moon – the one that can never be seen from Earth.
I wouldn't mind betting that the majority of people answered "the dark side of the Moon" to this question, and I doubt whether any question master would deny the points to anyone who answered "the far side of the Moon". But strictly speaking, this answer (i.e. the one given on the night) is wrong.
We have been contacted by Iain McNair, from Cumnock, Ayrshire, a keen quizzer who also sets occasional quizzes for his local rugby club, and has this to add to my comments:
"Having researched the subject for my Christmas Quiz, I found that [the Apollo 8 astronauts] had already passed round the 'Far Side Of The Moon' on four previous occasions, on this particular pass they were able to photograph an 'EARTHRISE' and this photo became a Life Magazine photo of the century."
Apollo 8 entered lunar orbit just a few seconds before 10:00 UTC (a.k.a. GMT) on Christmas Eve, 24 December 1968. According to Wikipedia, the Earthrise photo (which, as Iain says, was taken as the Apollo 8 Command Module emerged from its fourth pass 'behind' the moon) was taken at 16:00 on the same day.
Because virtually every point on the Moon's surface always points either towards the Earth or away from it, Earthrise cannot be seen from the Moon's surface (except at spots very close to the edge of the 'disc' that we appear to see from Earth, because of the Moon's apparent libration). But at certain times it can be seen while in orbit around the Moon.
Iain also tells us that Cumnock is, or was, "once famed for Industry, Poet, Rabbie Burns and a guy named Bill Shankly."
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