Charles Darwin reaches Galapagos (1835)
Charles Robert Darwin (12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species…
Gravitational Waves are Observed for the First Time (2015)
Gravitational waves are oscillations of the gravitational field that travel through space at the speed of light; they are generated by the relative motion of gravitating masses. They were proposed…
Columbus Sets Sail to America (1492)
Christopher Columbus (between 25 August and 31 October 1451 – 20 May 1506) was an Italian explorer and navigator from the Republic of Genoa who completed four Spanish-based voyages across…
Happy Birthday Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749)
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German polymath who is widely regarded as the most influential writer in the German language. His work…
Maiden Flight of the Lockheed C-130 Hercules (1954)
The Lockheed C-130 Hercules is an American four-engine turboprop military transport aircraft designed and built by Lockheed (now Lockheed Martin). Capable of using unprepared runways for take-offs and landings, the…
Ewald Rohlfs Reaches 2,339m with the Focke-Wulf FW61 Helicopter (1937)
The Focke-Wulf Fw 61 was the first successful, practical, and fully controllable helicopter, first flown in 1936. It was also known as the Fa 61, as Focke began a new…
Ed White Becomes the First US-Astronaut to do an EVA (1965)
Edward Higgins White II (November 14, 1930 – January 27, 1967) was an American aeronautical engineer, United States Air Force officer, test pilot, and NASA astronaut. He was a member…
Happy Birthday Otto Lilienthal (1848)
Otto Lilienthal (23 May 1848 – 10 August 1896) was a German pioneer of aviation who became known as the „flying man“. He was the first person to make well-documented,…
Pioneer 10 Travels Beyond Pluto (1983)
Pioneer 10 was launched on March 3, 1972, at 01:49:00 UTC by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration from Space Launch Complex 36A in Florida, aboard an Atlas-Centaur. The third…
Happy Birthday QEII (1926)
Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until her death in…
First African American Depicted on a US Postage Stamp (1940)
In 1896 when Washington reviewed the study conducted by George Washington Carver about the infection plaguing the soybean crop, he invited Carver to head the Agriculture Department at Tuskegee, where…
Happy Birthday Ludwig van Beethoven (1770)
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. He is one of the most revered figures in the history of Western music; his works rank among the most performed…
Happy Birthday Vincent van Gogh (1853)
Vincent van Gogh (30 March 1853 – 29 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art.…
Alexei Leonov Conducts First EVA (1965)
Extravehicular activity (EVA) is any activity done by an astronaut in outer space outside a spacecraft. In the absence of a breathable Earthlike atmosphere, the astronaut is completely reliant on…
Deep Blue beats Garry Kasparov at Chess (1997)
Today 28 years ago an AI beat a world champion chess master for the first time. Deep Blue was a chess-playing expert system run on a unique purpose-built IBM supercomputer…
Skylab 4 Crew Returns to Earth (1974)
Today we remember the safe return of the Skylab 4 crew to earth, 51 years ago. On the 8th of February 1974 the crew splashed down in the Pacific. Skylab…