Science & discovery
324 stories through the year, in calendar order. Tap one to visit its day.
January
- 1 Jan 1801 Astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi discovers the dwarf planet CeresItalian astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi spotted Ceres from his observatory in Palermo, Sicily. It was announced as a new planet and named after the Roman …
- 1 Jan 1983 ARPANET switches to TCP/IP, creating the InternetThe ARPANET, an early American computer network, switched to using a set of rules called TCP/IP. These rules let different computer networks connect …
- 2 Jan 1860 Urbain Le Verrier announces the discovery of planet VulcanFrench mathematician Urbain Le Verrier told the French Academy of Sciences in Paris about the discovery of a new planet. It was called Vulcan, and it…
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2 Jan
2004 The Stardust probe collects dust from Comet Wild 2NASA's Stardust space probe flew past Comet Wild 2 and collected tiny specks of dust from its coma, the cloudy envelope around a comet. The samples c…
Photo: NASA, Public domain
- 5 Jan 1906 Born: Kathleen KenyonKathleen Kenyon was a British archaeologist, someone who learns about the past by digging up and studying ancient remains. From 1952 to 1958 she led …
- 5 Jan 2005 Astronomers discover Eris, a dwarf planet beyond NeptuneA team led by astronomer Mike Brown discovered Eris, using pictures from the Samuel Oschin telescope at Palomar Observatory in California. Eris is a …
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6 Jan
1907 Maria Montessori opens her first school in RomeItalian doctor and educator Maria Montessori opened her first school and day-care centre, for children from working-class families in Rome. Her way o…
Photo: Unknown author, Public domain
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6 Jan
1912 Alfred Wegener presents his idea that the continents driftGerman scientist Alfred Wegener presented his theory of continental drift, the idea that continents slowly move, to the German Geological Society. It…
Photo: Unknown author, Public domain
- 6 Jan 1974 The USA keeps its clocks on summer time all year roundThe United States began a trial of daylight saving time all year round. Normally, clocks go forward one hour in spring and back one hour in autumn, s…
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7 Jan
1610 Galileo spots four of Jupiter's moons through his telescopeLooking through his telescope, Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei saw Jupiter's four largest moons: Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. At first he co…
Photo: WhatADrag07, CC BY-SA 4.0
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7 Jan
1835 HMS Beagle, with Charles Darwin aboard, reaches the Chonos IslandsThe Royal Navy survey ship HMS Beagle dropped anchor off the Chonos Archipelago, a group of islands. On board was the naturalist Charles Darwin. Darw…
Photo: R. T. Pritchett, Public domain
- 7 Jan 1939 Marguerite Perey discovers the element franciumFrench physicist Marguerite Perey identified a new chemical element, francium. It was the last element to be discovered in nature rather than made by…
- 8 Jan 1823 Born: Alfred Russel WallaceAlfred Russel Wallace was a naturalist, explorer and illustrator. He worked out the theory of evolution by natural selection on his own. His paper on…
- 8 Jan 1889 Herman Hollerith is granted a patent for his punched-card machineAmerican inventor Herman Hollerith received a patent for his tabulating machine. It used electricity to count information stored as holes punched in …
- 8 Jan 1942 Born: Stephen HawkingStephen Hawking was an English scientist who studied black holes and the universe. He was born in Oxford and became a professor at the University of …
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9 Jan
1816 Humphry Davy's safety lamp is tested in a coal mineHumphry Davy's new safety lamp was tested at Hebburn Colliery, a coal mine. In mines, flammable gases such as methane, called firedamp, could explode…
Photo: Scan made by Kogo, Public domain
- 9 Jan 1992 The first planets outside our Solar System are confirmedRadio astronomers Aleksander Wolszczan and Dale Frail announced that they had found two planets orbiting a pulsar called PSR B1257+12. They were the …
- 10 Jan 1946 Project Diana bounces radar signals off the MoonThe US Army Signal Corps sent radar signals to the Moon and picked up the echoes that bounced back. The experiment was called Project Diana, after th…
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11 Jan
1787 William Herschel discovers two moons of UranusAstronomer William Herschel spotted two moons travelling around the planet Uranus. His son John later named them Titania and Oberon. Herschel was bor…
Photo: Lemuel Francis Abbott, Public domain
- 11 Jan 1922 Leonard Thompson is the first person treated with insulinIn Toronto, Canada, 13-year-old Leonard Thompson became the first person given an insulin injection to treat type 1 diabetes. His first dose was not …
- 11 Jan 1964 A landmark US report warns that smoking harms healthExperts advising the US Surgeon General, one of America's top health officials, published a famous report about smoking. After studying more than 7,0…
- 12 Jan 1866 The world's oldest society for flight is founded in LondonThe Aeronautical Society of Great Britain was founded in London. Aeronautics is the science of flight, and this is the oldest aeronautical society in…
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12 Jan
2005 NASA launches Deep Impact to crash into a cometNASA's Deep Impact space probe was launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida. Its mission was to find out what the inside of a comet is made of. In Jul…
Photo: NASA/JPL, Public domain
- 12 Jan 2007 Comet McNaught becomes the brightest comet in 40 yearsComet McNaught made its closest approach to the Sun and became the brightest comet for more than 40 years. For a few days it was bright enough to be …
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13 Jan
1888 The National Geographic Society is foundedA group of 33 explorers and scientists met at a club in Washington, DC, to start a society to spread knowledge about geography. It became the Nationa…
Photo: APK, CC BY-SA 3.0
- 15 Jan 1885 Wilson Bentley takes the first known photo of a snowflakeWilson Bentley, a 19-year-old from a farm in Jericho, Vermont, in the USA, took the first known photograph of a snowflake. After much experimenting, …
- 15 Jan 1962 The Derveni papyrus, Europe's oldest manuscript, is foundArchaeologists discovered the Derveni papyrus at Derveni, near Thessaloniki in northern Greece. It is a roll of papyrus, an early writing material, d…
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15 Jan
2005 Europe's SMART-1 spacecraft detects elements on the MoonSMART-1, a European Space Agency spacecraft orbiting the Moon, detected chemical elements on the Moon's surface, including calcium, aluminium, silico…
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16 Jan
1913 Ramanujan writes his first letter to mathematician G. H. HardySrinivasa Ramanujan, a brilliant Indian mathematician who had been working on his own, wrote to G. H. Hardy at the University of Cambridge. His lette…
Photo: Unknown author, CC BY 4.0
- 16 Jan 1932 Born: Dian FosseyDian Fossey was an American scientist who studied mountain gorillas in the forests of Rwanda for nearly 20 years. She watched the gorillas almost eve…
- 17 Jan 1706 Born: Benjamin FranklinBenjamin Franklin was an American printer, scientist, inventor and statesman. He was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States and helped to w…
- 18 Jan 1896 An X-ray machine is shown in public for the first timeH. L. Smith exhibited a machine for making X-rays for the first time. X-rays had been discovered only the year before by the German scientist Wilhelm…
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19 Jan
1736 Born: James WattJames Watt was a Scottish inventor and engineer, born on 19 January by the old calendar then used in Britain. While working at the University of Glas…
Photo: Carl Frederik von Breda, Public domain
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19 Jan
1883 Edison's first electric lighting system with overhead wires beginsThe first electric lighting system to use overhead wires, built by inventor Thomas Edison, started working in Roselle, New Jersey, in the USA. That y…
Photo: Louis Bachrach, Bachrach Studios, restored by Michel Vuijlsteke, Public domain
- 20 Jan 1775 Born: André-Marie AmpèreAndré-Marie Ampère was a French scientist and mathematician who helped to found the science of electromagnetism, which studies how electricity and ma…
- 21 Jan 1954 USS Nautilus, the first nuclear-powered submarine, is launchedUSS Nautilus, the world's first submarine powered by a nuclear reactor, was launched at Groton, Connecticut, in the United States. Mamie Eisenhower, …
- 21 Jan 1960 Miss Sam the monkey flies in a Mercury spacecraft testA Little Joe rocket lifted off from Wallops Island, Virginia, carrying a rhesus monkey called Miss Sam inside a Mercury spacecraft. The flight tested…
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21 Jan
1971 Emley Moor tower, the UK's tallest structure, starts broadcastingThe new Emley Moor transmitting station, near Huddersfield in West Yorkshire, began sending out colour television signals. The concrete tower replace…
Photo: Alan Zomerfeld, CC BY-SA 2.5
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21 Jan
2004 NASA's Mars rover Spirit stops sending messages to EarthNASA's Mars rover Spirit suddenly stopped communicating with mission control, less than three weeks after landing on Mars. The fault was in the way t…
Photo: NASA, Public domain
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22 Jan
1561 Born: Francis BaconFrancis Bacon was an English philosopher and statesman who served King James I as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor. He argued for studying the na…
Photo: Paul van Somer I / Formerly attributed to Frans Pourbus the Younger, Public domain
- 22 Jan 1968 Apollo 5 gives NASA's Moon lander its first test flightApollo 5 lifted off from Cape Kennedy on a Saturn IB rocket, carrying NASA's Lunar Module into space for the first time. The Lunar Module was the spa…
- 22 Jan 1984 Apple's famous '1984' advert introduces the Macintosh computerDuring the Super Bowl, America's biggest American football game, Apple Computer showed a TV advert called '1984' to introduce its new Macintosh compu…
- 23 Jan 1849 Elizabeth Blackwell is the first woman to earn a US medical degreeEnglish-born Elizabeth Blackwell graduated from Geneva Medical College in New York. She became the first woman to earn a medical degree in the United…
- 23 Jan 1922 Insulin is first used successfully to treat diabetesIn Toronto, Canada, a 13-year-old boy called Leonard Thompson began daily injections of a purified insulin extract. His health quickly improved, maki…
- 23 Jan 1960 The Trieste reaches the deepest point of the oceanThe bathyscaphe Trieste, a deep-diving research vessel, became the first crewed craft to reach the bottom of Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench. T…
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23 Jan
1993 Mosaic, the first popular web browser, is releasedThe first version of Mosaic, a web browser created by Marc Andreessen and Eric Bina, was released. A web browser is a program for viewing pages on th…
Photo: Charles Severance, CC0
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23 Jan
2003 The last signal is received from the space probe Pioneer 10Scientists picked up the final signal from NASA's space probe Pioneer 10, then about 12 billion kilometres from Earth. Launched in 1972, Pioneer 10 w…
Photo: NASA/Don Davis, Public domain
- 24 Jan 1918 Russia switches to the Gregorian calendarRussia's new government ordered the country to change to the Gregorian calendar, which is used in most of the world, from 14 February. Russia had bee…
- 24 Jan 1928 Born: Desmond MorrisDesmond Morris was an English zoologist who studied animal behaviour, a science called ethology. He presented television programmes such as Zoo Time.…
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24 Jan
1986 Voyager 2 makes the first close visit to UranusNASA's Voyager 2 space probe made its closest approach to Uranus, the seventh planet from the Sun. It is the only spacecraft to have visited Uranus o…
Photo: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Public domain
- 24 Jan 1990 Japan launches Hiten, its first probe to the MoonJapan launched the Hiten spacecraft, its first probe to the Moon. It was the first Moon probe launched by any country other than the Soviet Union or …
- 25 Jan 1915 Bell opens the first coast-to-coast telephone line in the USAAlexander Graham Bell opened the first telephone service right across the United States. Speaking from New York, he talked to his former assistant Th…
- 25 Jan 1947 A patent is filed for the earliest known electronic gameThomas Goldsmith Jr. filed a patent for a 'cathode-ray tube amusement device', the earliest known electronic game. A patent is a legal document that …
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25 Jan
2004 NASA's rover Opportunity lands on MarsNASA's rover Opportunity landed on Mars and rolled into a small crater called Eagle crater, on a plain called Meridiani Planum. It arrived three week…
Photo: NASA/JPL/Cornell University, Maas Digital LLC, Public domain
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26 Jan
1926 John Logie Baird gives the first demonstration of televisionScottish inventor John Logie Baird gave the first public demonstration of true television pictures, showing moving images of people. His audience was…
Photo: Baird Television, Public domain
- 26 Jan 1949 The giant Hale Telescope looks at the sky for the first timeThe Hale Telescope at Palomar Observatory in California saw 'first light', meaning it was used to look at the sky for the first time. Its main mirror…
- 26 Jan 1962 NASA's Ranger 3 probe is launched but misses the MoonNASA launched the space probe Ranger 3 to study the Moon. A series of faults sent it off course, and it missed the Moon by about 22,000 miles (35,000…
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27 Jan
1880 Thomas Edison is granted a patent for his electric light bulbAmerican inventor Thomas Edison received a patent for his incandescent lamp, a type of electric light bulb. In this kind of bulb, electricity heats a…
Photo: Arnaud 25, CC BY-SA 3.0
- 27 Jan 2011 Astronomers record a white dwarf star with a record-hot surfaceAstronomers reported that H1504+65, a white dwarf star in the constellation Ursa Minor, had the hottest surface temperature then known: about 200,000…
- 27 Jan 2017 The new chemical element tennessine is officially namedA naming ceremony was held in the United States for tennessine, a chemical element with the symbol Ts and atomic number 117. Tennessine does not occu…
- 28 Jan Every year Data Privacy DayData Privacy Day is an international event held every year to raise awareness of privacy and data protection. It encourages people to look after thei…
- 29 Jan 1926 Born: Abdus SalamAbdus Salam was a Pakistani physicist who studied the tiny particles that everything is made of. In 1979 he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics. His pr…
- 29 Jan 1996 France announces an end to its nuclear weapons testsFrench President Jacques Chirac announced a 'definitive end' to France's testing of nuclear weapons. Nuclear tests are experiments to see how these w…
- 30 Jan 1995 The first preventive medicine for sickle cell disease is approvedHydroxycarbamide became the first approved medicine to help prevent the attacks caused by sickle cell disease. Sickle cell disease is an inherited bl…
- 30 Jan 2013 South Korea's Naro-1 rocket reaches orbitSouth Korea's Naro-1 rocket placed a small satellite called STSAT-2C into orbit around the Earth. It was the first time a South Korean rocket had rea…
- 31 Jan 1862 Alvan Graham Clark discovers the white dwarf star Sirius BAmerican astronomer and telescope-maker Alvan Graham Clark discovered Sirius B, a faint partner star of Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky. …
- 31 Jan 1958 Explorer 1, America's first satellite, is launchedExplorer 1, the first satellite launched by the United States, lifted off from Cape Canaveral in Florida late in the evening, local time. It followed…
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31 Jan
1966 The Soviet Union launches Luna 9 to the MoonThe Soviet Union launched the robot spacecraft Luna 9. On 3 February it became the first spacecraft to make a soft landing on the Moon and send back …
Photo: Pline, CC BY-SA 3.0
- 31 Jan 1979 Born: Daniel TammetDaniel Tammet is an English writer, born in Barking, London. His memoir Born on a Blue Day describes his early life with Asperger syndrome and savant…
February
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3 Feb
1790 Born: Gideon MantellGideon Mantell was an English doctor, geologist and palaeontologist, a scientist who studies fossils. In 1822 he found the first fossil teeth of Igua…
Photo: Public domain, Public domain
- 3 Feb 1821 Born: Elizabeth BlackwellElizabeth Blackwell was an English-born doctor who became the first woman to earn a medical degree in the United States. She was also the first woman…
- 5 Feb 1869 Gold hunters find the giant Welcome Stranger nugget in AustraliaGold prospectors at Moliagul, in Australia, found the largest alluvial gold nugget ever discovered. It became known as the Welcome Stranger. A nugget…
- 5 Feb 1909 Leo Baekeland announces Bakelite, the first synthetic plasticBelgian chemist Leo Baekeland announced his invention of Bakelite, the first plastic made from synthetic, or man-made, ingredients. He had developed …
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5 Feb
1924 The Greenwich 'pips' time signal is broadcast for the first timeThe Royal Observatory in Greenwich began sending out the hourly time signal known as 'the pips'. These six short beeps, one second apart, are broadca…
Photo: R Sones, CC BY-SA 2.0
- 6 Feb 1913 Born: Mary LeakeyMary Leakey was a British scientist who studied the fossils of early humans and their ancestors. She found the first fossil skull of Proconsul, an ex…
- 6 Feb 1959 Jack Kilby files the first patent for a microchipAmerican engineer Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments filed the first patent for an integrated circuit, often called a microchip. A patent protects an in…
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7 Feb
1979 Pluto moves inside Neptune's orbitPluto moved inside the orbit of Neptune for the first time since either of them was discovered. Pluto's path around the Sun is a stretched oval, so f…
- 7 Feb 2001 Atlantis carries the Destiny laboratory to the space stationSpace Shuttle Atlantis launched on mission STS-98, carrying the Destiny laboratory module to the International Space Station. A laboratory is a place…
- 7 Feb 2014 Ancient footprints found on a Norfolk beach are announcedScientists announced the discovery of the Happisburgh footprints on a beach in Norfolk, England. The prints, left by ancient human relatives, are aro…
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8 Feb
1834 Born: Dmitri MendeleevDmitri Mendeleev was a Russian chemist who created a version of the periodic table of elements. This is the chart that scientists use to organise all…
Photo: Original: Unknown authorUnknown author Upload: Germansociety2014, Public domain
- 8 Feb 1879 Sandford Fleming suggests a worldwide standard timeScottish-born engineer Sandford Fleming first suggested a Universal Standard Time, at a meeting of the Royal Canadian Institute. He wanted the world …
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8 Feb
1974 Skylab 4 astronauts return to Earth after 84 days in spaceThe three astronauts of Skylab 4 returned to Earth after 84 days in space. Gerald Carr, Edward Gibson and William Pogue were the third and final crew…
Photo: NASA (Crew of Skylab 4), Public domain
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9 Feb
1986 Halley's Comet visits the inner Solar SystemHalley's Comet was passing through the inner Solar System on its most recent visit. It is the only known short-period comet that can regularly be see…
Photo: NASA/W. Liller, Public domain
- 9 Feb 1996 Scientists create the new element coperniciumScientists at the GSI Helmholtz Centre near Darmstadt, Germany, created the chemical element copernicium for the first time. It has the atomic number…
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10 Feb
1996 Computer Deep Blue beats world chess champion Garry KasparovIBM's chess computer Deep Blue beat world champion Garry Kasparov in a game of chess. It was the first time a computer had won a game against a reign…
Photo: James the photographer, CC BY 2.0
- 11 Feb Every year International Day of Women and Girls in ScienceThis day encourages women and girls to take an equal part in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM). The United Nations General Assembly c…
- 11 Feb 1144 Robert of Chester translates Europe's first book on alchemyRobert of Chester, an English scholar, finished translating a book about alchemy from Arabic into Latin. It was the first book on alchemy to become a…
- 11 Feb 1826 England's first secular university is founded in LondonLondon University, which later became University College London (UCL), was founded. It was the first secular university in England, which means it wa…
- 11 Feb 1847 Born: Thomas EdisonThomas Edison was an American inventor and businessman, famous for his work on the electric light bulb. He also developed the phonograph, an early ma…
- 11 Feb 1938 The BBC shows the first science fiction on televisionThe BBC broadcast part of R.U.R., a play by the Czech writer Karel Čapek. It was the first time science fiction had ever been shown on television. R.…
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11 Feb
1997 Space Shuttle Discovery sets off to upgrade the Hubble telescopeSpace Shuttle Discovery launched from Florida on NASA's second mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope. In orbit, the astronauts repaired and u…
Photo: NASA, Public domain
- 11 Feb 1999 Pluto moves back outside Neptune's orbitPluto crossed the path of Neptune's orbit and moved back out beyond it. For nearly 20 years, Pluto had been closer to the Sun than Neptune. It is not…
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12 Feb
1809 Born: Charles DarwinCharles Darwin was an English naturalist, geologist and biologist. From 1831 to 1836 he went on a five-year voyage aboard HMS Beagle, collecting wild…
Photo: Charles_Darwin_seated.jpg: Henry Maull (1829–1914) and John Fox (1832–1907) (Maull & Fox) derivative work: Beao, Public domain
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12 Feb
2001 NEAR Shoemaker becomes the first spacecraft to land on an asteroidNASA's robotic space probe NEAR Shoemaker touched down on Eros, a stony asteroid with a long, stretched shape. It was the first spacecraft ever to la…
Photo: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Public domain
- 13 Feb 1633 Galileo arrives in Rome to face trial over his ideasThe Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei arrived in Rome to be tried by the Roman Inquisition, a Church court. Galileo had studied the sky with his tel…
- 13 Feb 1728 Born: John HunterJohn Hunter was a Scottish surgeon and one of the leading scientists of his day. He believed in careful observation and scientific methods in medicin…
- 13 Feb 2004 A star nicknamed Lucy is found to be a giant diamondAstronomers in the United States announced that they had found the largest known diamond in the universe. It is a white dwarf star called BPM 37093, …
- 14 Feb 1614 Born: John WilkinsJohn Wilkins was an English clergyman, scientist and writer, and one of the founders of the Royal Society. He is one of the few people to have been h…
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14 Feb
1852 Great Ormond Street Hospital for children is founded in LondonThe Hospital for Sick Children in Great Ormond Street, London, was founded after a long campaign by Dr Charles West. It was the first hospital in Eng…
Photo: Nigel Cox, CC BY-SA 2.0
- 14 Feb 1869 Born: C. T. R. WilsonCharles Thomson Rees Wilson was a Scottish physicist and weather scientist. He invented the cloud chamber, a device that shows the paths of tiny, inv…
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14 Feb
1876 Alexander Graham Bell applies for a patent for the telephoneScottish-born inventor Alexander Graham Bell applied for a patent for the telephone in the United States. A patent is a legal right that stops other …
- 14 Feb 1990 Voyager 1 photographs Earth as a 'pale blue dot'Looking back from over 6 billion kilometres away, NASA's Voyager 1 space probe photographed Earth. In the picture, Earth is smaller than a single pix…
- 15 Feb 1564 Born: Galileo GalileiGalileo Galilei was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, born in Pisa. Using his new, much stronger telescope, he discovered moons travelli…
- 15 Feb 1923 Greece adopts the Gregorian calendar, the last in Europe to do soGreece adopted the Gregorian calendar for everyday use, the last European country to do so. This calendar was introduced in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII…
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15 Feb
1946 ENIAC, the first general-purpose electronic computer, is unveiledENIAC was formally dedicated, or officially presented, at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, USA. It was the first programmable, electro…
Photo: The original uploader was TexasDex at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0
- 15 Feb 2001 Scientists publish the first draft of the human genomeThe first draft of the complete human genome was published in the British science journal Nature. The human genome is the complete set of human DNA, …
- 16 Feb 1859 France sets the first official pitch for tuning musical instrumentsThe French government passed a law saying that the musical note A above middle C should be 435 hertz. Hertz measures how many times something vibrate…
- 16 Feb 1937 Wallace Carothers gets a patent for nylonAmerican chemist Wallace Carothers received a United States patent for nylon. He led a team of chemists at the company DuPont and is credited with in…
- 17 Feb 1959 Vanguard 2, the first weather satellite, is launchedThe United States Navy launched Vanguard 2, the first weather satellite. It was designed to measure how much of the Earth was covered by cloud during…
- 18 Feb 1745 Born: Alessandro VoltaAlessandro Volta was an Italian chemist and physicist who is credited with inventing the electric battery. In 1799 he built the voltaic pile, which s…
- 18 Feb 1871 Born: Harry BrearleyHarry Brearley was an English metallurgist, an expert in metals, who worked in Sheffield. He is credited with discovering 'rustless steel', which lat…
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18 Feb
1930 Clyde Tombaugh discovers PlutoAmerican astronomer Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto while studying photographs of the night sky taken in January. He worked at Lowell Observatory in …
Photo: Unknown author, Public domain
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18 Feb
2021 NASA's Perseverance rover lands on MarsNASA's car-sized rover Perseverance landed in Jezero Crater on Mars. Scientists chose the crater because it once held a lake and river delta, which m…
Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS, Public domain
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19 Feb
1473 Born: Nicolaus CopernicusNicolaus Copernicus was a mathematician and astronomer. He came up with a model of the universe with the Sun, not the Earth, at its centre. His book …
Photo: Unknown author, Public domain
- 19 Feb 1878 Thomas Edison patents the phonographAmerican inventor Thomas Edison received a patent for the phonograph, which he had invented in 1877. It was a machine that could record sounds and pl…
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19 Feb
2002 NASA's Mars Odyssey starts to map the surface of MarsNASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft began mapping the surface of Mars with a heat-sensing camera. Its job is to look for signs of water and ice, past or p…
Photo: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Public domain
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20 Feb
1824 William Buckland names Megalosaurus, the first dinosaur to get a nameEnglish geologist William Buckland announced the name Megalosaurus, which means 'great lizard'. It became the first dinosaur to be properly given a s…
Photo: Mary Morland (later Buckland; 1797–1857), Public domain
- 20 Feb 1943 A brand-new volcano, Parícutin, appears in a Mexican cornfieldA crack opened in the ground in a farmer's cornfield in Michoacán, Mexico, and began to erupt. It kept erupting for nine years, building up a new con…
- 20 Feb 1986 The Soviet Union launches the Mir space stationThe Soviet Union launched the first part of Mir, the first space station built from separate sections, or modules. It was put together in orbit betwe…
- 21 Feb 1947 Edwin Land shows off the first instant cameraIn New York City, American inventor Edwin Land demonstrated the Polaroid Land Camera to a meeting of the Optical Society of America. It was the first…
- 21 Feb 1972 Soviet robot spacecraft Luna 20 lands on the MoonLuna 20, an uncrewed Soviet spacecraft, made a gentle landing in a mountainous area of the Moon. It used a drill to collect a small sample of Moon so…
- 22 Feb 1632 The first copy of Galileo's famous Dialogue is printedFerdinando II de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, received the first printed copy of Galileo Galilei's book Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Sy…
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22 Feb
1997 Scientists reveal Dolly the sheep, the first cloned mammalScientists at the Roslin Institute in Midlothian, Scotland, announced Dolly, a Finn-Dorset sheep born the summer before. She was the first mammal to …
Photo: Sgerbic, CC BY-SA 4.0
- 23 Feb 1886 Charles Martin Hall finds a cheap way to make aluminiumAmerican inventor Charles Martin Hall discovered an inexpensive way of producing aluminium. Aluminium is a light, silvery metal, only about a third a…
- 23 Feb 1954 Children get Salk's polio vaccine in the first mass vaccinationIn Pittsburgh, USA, large numbers of children began to be given Jonas Salk's new vaccine against polio. Polio is an infectious disease caused by a vi…
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23 Feb
1987 Light from a nearby exploding star, Supernova 1987A, reaches EarthLight from a supernova, the huge explosion of a star, reached Earth. It happened in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small galaxy that orbits our own Mi…
Photo: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center from Greenbelt, MD, USA, Public domain
- 24 Feb 1582 Pope Gregory XIII announces a new calendarPope Gregory XIII announced changes to the calendar. The old Julian calendar had a leap year every four years, which made it slowly drift out of step…
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24 Feb
1743 Born: Joseph BanksJoseph Banks was an English naturalist and botanist, an expert on plants. He sailed with Captain James Cook on his first great voyage (1768–1771), vi…
Photo: Joshua Reynolds, Public domain
- 24 Feb 1827 Born: Lydia BeckerLydia Becker was a leader of the early campaign to win the vote for women in Britain, known as the suffrage movement. She made Manchester a centre of…
- 25 Feb 1866 Miners find the Calaveras Skull, later shown to be a hoaxMiners in Calaveras County, California, found a human skull. Some people claimed it proved that humans lived in North America millions of years ago, …
- 26 Feb 1616 Galileo is banned from teaching that the Earth orbits the SunAfter a panel of the Roman Inquisition, part of the Catholic Church, condemned the idea that the Earth moves around the Sun, Galileo Galilei was form…
- 26 Feb 1935 Robert Watson-Watt shows that radio waves can detect aircraftScottish engineer Robert Watson-Watt and his colleague Arnold Wilkins set up two receiving aerials near a BBC radio transmitter at Daventry, England.…
- 27 Feb 1940 Scientists discover carbon-14, later used to date ancient findsAmerican chemists Martin Kamen and Sam Ruben discovered carbon-14 at the University of California, Berkeley. Carbon-14 is a radioactive form of carbo…
- 27 Feb 1942 British paratroopers raid a German radar station at BrunevalOn a secret mission called Operation Biting, British airborne troops led by Major John Frost parachuted into northern France at night. Their aim was …
- 28 Feb 1915 Born: Peter MedawarPeter Medawar was a Brazilian-born British biologist whose discoveries about the body's immune system were key to making tissue and organ transplants…
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28 Feb
1928 C. V. Raman discovers the Raman effectIndian physicist C. V. Raman and his student K. S. Krishnan discovered that when light passes through a clear material, some of the light that is sca…
Photo: Nobel Foundation, Public domain
- 28 Feb 1953 Francis Crick and James Watson work out the structure of DNAAt the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, Francis Crick and James Watson worked out the structure of DNA, the molecule that stores genetic informatio…
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28 Feb
1997 Scientists spot the first afterglow of a gamma-ray burstScientists detected GRB 970228, a very bright 80-second flash of gamma rays, a powerful kind of radiation. It was the first gamma-ray burst for which…
Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), Public domain
- 29 Feb 1712 Sweden has a 30 FebruarySweden's calendar had a 30 February. In 1700 Sweden began changing to the new Gregorian calendar slowly by skipping leap days, but a war stopped the …
September
- 28 Sep 1889 An international conference defines the length of a metreAn international conference on weights and measures, known as the CGPM, set out the length of the metre. The metre had been introduced during the Fre…
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28 Sep
1928 Alexander Fleming discovers penicillinScottish scientist Alexander Fleming noticed that a mould growing in his laboratory was killing bacteria. The substance it made became known as penic…
Photo: Official photographer, Public domain
- 29 Sep 1954 European countries sign the agreement that sets up CERNThe convention, or formal agreement, that set up CERN was signed. CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, runs the largest particle phy…
- 29 Sep 2007 Calder Hall nuclear power station is demolishedCalder Hall, at Sellafield in Cumbria, was the first full-scale nuclear power station to start working anywhere in the world. It ran from 1956 to 200…
- 30 Sep 1905 Born: Nevill MottSir Nevill Mott was a British physicist who studied how electrons behave inside materials. His work helped to explain why certain materials sometimes…
October
- 2 Oct 1852 Born: William RamsaySir William Ramsay was a Scottish chemist who discovered the noble gases. Working with Lord Rayleigh, he identified argon, a gas found in the air. He…
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2 Oct
1925 John Logie Baird sends the first television pictureIn his laboratory, the Scottish inventor John Logie Baird sent the first television picture with shades of grey. The picture showed the head of a ven…
Photo: GolurkKoopa, CC0
- 4 Oct 1582 The Gregorian calendar begins and ten days are skippedPope Gregory XIII brought in a new calendar to replace the old Julian calendar. To bring it back into line with the seasons, ten days were skipped, s…
- 6 Oct 1903 Born: Ernest WaltonErnest Walton was an Irish physicist who shared the 1951 Nobel Prize in Physics with John Cockcroft. Together they used a machine to speed up tiny pa…
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6 Oct
1990 Space Shuttle Discovery launches the Ulysses probe to study the SunSpace Shuttle Discovery blasted off on a mission called STS-41. Its main job was to launch the Ulysses space probe. Ulysses was sent to study the reg…
Photo: NASA, Public domain
- 6 Oct 1995 Astronomers announce the first planet found around a Sun-like starSwiss astronomers Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz announced that they had found a planet circling 51 Pegasi, a star like our Sun. It was the first pla…
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6 Oct
2008 MESSENGER discovers a giant crater on MercuryNASA's MESSENGER space probe discovered a huge crater on the planet Mercury during its second flyby. The crater, named Rembrandt, is 716 km wide, mak…
Photo: NASA / JHU/APL, Public domain
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7 Oct
1939 Born: Harry KrotoHarry Kroto was an English chemist who was later knighted, becoming Sir Harry Kroto. He shared the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Robert Curl and…
Photo: Janwikifoto, CC BY-SA 3.0
- 7 Oct 1959 Luna 3 gives the world its first look at the far side of the MoonThe Soviet space probe Luna 3 made history with the first ever photographs of the far side of the Moon. This side always faces away from Earth, so no…
- 7 Oct 2008 Asteroid 2008 TC3 explodes over Sudan, just as predictedA small asteroid called 2008 TC3 entered Earth's atmosphere and exploded about 37 km above the Nubian Desert in Sudan. It was the first time scientis…
- 8 Oct 1645 Jeanne Mance opens Montreal's first hospitalJeanne Mance, a French nurse, opened the Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal, the first hospital in Montreal. She had been one of the founders of the city in 1642…
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9 Oct
1410 The Prague astronomical clock is first mentionedThe Prague astronomical clock, also called the Prague Orloj, was mentioned in writing for the first time. This medieval clock is attached to the Old …
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9 Oct
1604 Kepler's Supernova appears in the night skyA supernova – the huge explosion of a star – appeared in our galaxy, the Milky Way, in the constellation of Ophiuchus. It is the most recent supernov…
Photo: NASA/ESA/JHU/R.Sankrit & W.Blair, Public domain
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9 Oct
1676 Leeuwenhoek tells the Royal Society about tiny 'animalcules'The Dutch scientist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek wrote to the Royal Society in London about tiny creatures he called 'animalcules', or little animals. It …
Photo: Jan Verkolje, Public domain
- 9 Oct 1933 Born: Peter MansfieldPeter Mansfield was an English physicist and a professor at the University of Nottingham. He shared the 2003 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine wi…
- 9 Oct 1962 Nick Holonyak demonstrates the first visible-light LEDAmerican engineer Nick Holonyak gave the first public demonstration of a light-emitting diode, or LED, that glowed with visible light. He was working…
- 9 Oct 1992 A meteorite crashes into a parked car in Peekskill, New YorkA meteorite weighing about 12.6 kg smashed into a parked car in Peekskill, New York, USA. Sixteen separate videos captured it burning through Earth's…
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10 Oct
1731 Born: Henry CavendishHenry Cavendish was an English scientist who studied chemistry and physics. He is famous for discovering hydrogen, which he called 'inflammable air' …
Photo: George Wilson, Public domain
- 10 Oct 1846 William Lassell discovers Triton, Neptune's largest moonEnglish astronomer William Lassell discovered Triton, the largest moon of the planet Neptune. Triton is unusual because it travels around Neptune in …
- 10 Oct 1957 A fire at Windscale becomes Britain's worst nuclear accidentA fire broke out in one of the two nuclear reactors at Windscale, on the north-west coast of England in Cumberland. It became the worst nuclear accid…
- 12 Oct 1928 An iron lung helps a patient breathe for the first timeDoctors at Boston Children's Hospital in the USA used an iron lung for the first time. It helped an eight-year-old girl who had been paralysed by pol…
- 12 Oct 1979 Typhoon Tip sets a world record for the lowest air pressureTyphoon Tip, a huge storm in the western Pacific Ocean, reached the lowest air pressure ever recorded at sea level anywhere in the world: 870 milliba…
- 13 Oct 1773 Charles Messier discovers the Whirlpool GalaxyFrench astronomer Charles Messier discovered the Whirlpool Galaxy. It is 31 million light-years away, so its light has been travelling towards us for…
- 13 Oct 1862 Born: Mary KingsleyMary Kingsley was an English explorer and travel writer. Between 1893 and 1895 she journeyed through parts of Africa that are now Sierra Leone, Angol…
- 14 Oct 1947 Chuck Yeager becomes the first pilot to fly faster than soundAmerican test pilot Chuck Yeager became the first person to break the sound barrier. He reached Mach 1.06 in the Bell X-1, an experimental aircraft p…
- 14 Oct 2012 Felix Baumgartner breaks the sound barrier in a record skydiveAustrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner rose about 39 kilometres above New Mexico, USA, in a capsule carried by a helium balloon. Then he jumped. As he f…
- 15 Oct 1956 The FORTRAN computer language is shared with programmersFORTRAN, often called the first modern computer language, was shared with computer programmers for the first time. A programming language is a set of…
- 15 Oct 1997 The Cassini space probe launches on its journey to SaturnThe Cassini space probe blasted off from Cape Canaveral in the USA, heading for Saturn. It was a joint mission by NASA, the European Space Agency and…
- 16 Oct 1736 William Whiston's predicted comet fails to hit the EarthThe English mathematician William Whiston had predicted that a comet would strike the Earth, but it did not happen. Whiston was a thinker who helped …
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17 Oct
1604 Johannes Kepler begins watching a bright new star in the skyGerman astronomer Johannes Kepler began studying a very bright object that had appeared in the constellation Ophiuchus. It was a supernova, the explo…
Photo: August Köhler, Public domain
- 17 Oct 1907 Marconi starts the first paid wireless service across the AtlanticThe Marconi Company began the first commercial wireless service across the Atlantic Ocean, sending messages without wires for paying customers. The c…
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17 Oct
1956 The Queen opens the first commercial nuclear power stationQueen Elizabeth II officially opened the first commercial nuclear power station, at the site now called Sellafield on the coast of Cumbria in England…
Photo: Simon Ledingham, CC BY-SA 2.0
- 18 Oct 1963 Félicette becomes the first cat in spaceA Parisian cat, later named Félicette, became the first cat launched into space, aboard a French Véronique rocket. She was one of 14 female cats trai…
- 18 Oct 1967 Venera 4 is the first probe to study another planet's air up closeThe Soviet space probe Venera 4 became the first spacecraft to study conditions inside the atmosphere of another planet, Venus. It had two parts: a c…
- 19 Oct 1752 Benjamin Franklin's famous kite experiment appears in printA newspaper called The Pennsylvania Gazette printed a statement by Benjamin Franklin describing a kite experiment. Its aim was to show that lightning…
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19 Oct
1900 Max Planck discovers his famous law of radiationGerman scientist Max Planck discovered what is now called Planck's law. It describes the light and other radiation given off by a perfect 'black body…
Photo: Hugo Erfurth, Public domain
- 20 Oct 1891 Born: James ChadwickThe British physicist James Chadwick was born. He discovered the neutron, one of the tiny particles found in the centre of atoms. For this discovery …
- 20 Oct 1969 Scientists find the first evidence of quarksScientists at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center in California published the results of their experiments. They showed that protons are made of e…
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21 Oct
1854 Florence Nightingale sets off to nurse soldiers in the Crimean WarFlorence Nightingale and a team of 38 nurses and 15 nuns were sent to the Ottoman Empire. Their job was to care for British soldiers who had been inj…
Photo: Henry Hering (1814-1893), Public domain
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21 Oct
1879 Thomas Edison applies for a patent for his light bulbAmerican inventor Thomas Edison applied for a patent for his design of an incandescent light bulb. A patent protects an inventor's idea so others can…
Photo: Louis Bachrach, Bachrach Studios, restored by Michel Vuijlsteke, Public domain
- 21 Oct 1958 Born: Andre GeimThe physicist Andre Geim was born in Russia and later worked at the University of Manchester. In 2010 he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for his wo…
- 21 Oct 1983 The metre is defined using the speed of lightThe metre, the basic unit of length, was given a new definition. It became the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second. A vac…
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21 Oct
2003 Pictures are taken of the dwarf planet ErisAstronomers took images of a far-off world that were later used to show the discovery of the dwarf planet Eris. A team led by Mike Brown discovered i…
Photo: NASA/ESA/CSA JWST NIRCam; Ana Carolina de Souza Feliciano et al. & Melina Thévenot, CC BY-SA 4.0
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22 Oct
1879 Edison tests a light bulb that glows for 13 and a half hoursThomas Edison tested the first practical incandescent electric light bulb. The glowing part inside, called the filament, was made from thread that ha…
Photo: Louis Bachrach, Bachrach Studios, restored by Michel Vuijlsteke, Public domain
- 23 Oct Every year Mole DayMole Day is an unofficial holiday for chemists and chemistry students, held from 6:02 in the morning to 6:02 in the evening. Written American-style, …
- 23 Oct 1934 Jeannette Piccard becomes the first woman to fly in the stratosphereThe American balloonist Jeannette Piccard piloted a balloon flight that climbed to 17,550 metres. That made her the first woman to fly in the stratos…
- 24 Oct Every year World Polio DayWorld Polio Day was set up by Rotary International to mark the birthday of Jonas Salk. Salk led the first team to develop a vaccine against polio, a …
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24 Oct
1851 William Lassell discovers two new moons of UranusThe English astronomer William Lassell discovered Ariel and Umbriel, two moons of the planet Uranus. They were only the third and fourth of its moons…
Photo: Unknown author, Public domain
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26 Oct
1874 Born: Martin LowryMartin Lowry was an English chemist, born in 1874. He came up with an important idea about acids and bases. Another scientist, Johannes Brønsted, had…
Photo: Anonymous, Public domain
- 26 Oct 1977 Ali Maow Maalin is the last person to catch smallpox naturallyAli Maow Maalin, a hospital cook in Somalia, began to show signs of smallpox. He was the last person known to catch the disease naturally, and he mad…
- 27 Oct 1994 Gliese 229B is the first object smaller than a star to be confirmedGliese 229B became the first substellar object to be identified beyond doubt. Substellar means it is smaller than a star, and Gliese 229B is a brown …
- 28 Oct 1914 Born: Richard SyngeRichard Synge was an English biochemist, born in 1914. Working with Archer Martin, he invented partition chromatography, a way of separating out the …
- 29 Oct 1969 The first computer-to-computer link is made on ARPANETThe first ever link between two computers was made on ARPANET, an early computer network. ARPANET was set up by an agency of the United States Depart…
- 29 Oct 1991 Galileo becomes the first spacecraft to visit an asteroidNASA's Galileo space probe flew past the asteroid 951 Gaspra, becoming the first spacecraft to visit an asteroid. Asteroids are rocky, metallic or ic…
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30 Oct
1632 Born: Christopher WrenChristopher Wren was an English architect, astronomer, mathematician and physicist, born in 1632. After the Great Fire of London in 1666, he was put …
Photo: Godfrey Kneller, Public domain
- 30 Oct 1960 The UK's first successful kidney transplant takes place in EdinburghSurgeon Michael Woodruff carried out the first successful kidney transplant in the UK, at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. In a transplant, a health…
- 30 Oct 1985 Space Shuttle mission STS-61-A sets off with a record crewThe Space Shuttle Challenger lifted off on mission STS-61-A. It was a science mission using the Spacelab laboratory, paid for and directed by West Ge…
- 31 Oct 1923 Marble Bar begins a run of 160 scorching daysThe town of Marble Bar in Western Australia began a run of 160 days in a row at 100 degrees Fahrenheit. That is about 38 degrees Celsius. The Fahrenh…
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31 Oct
2000 The first crew sets off to live on the International Space StationSoyuz TM-31 blasted off from Kazakhstan, carrying the first long-stay crew to the International Space Station, known as Expedition 1. The station has…
Photo: NASA, Public domain
- 31 Oct 2005 Two new moons of Pluto, Nix and Hydra, are announcedAstronomers announced that they had found two more moons of Pluto, later named Nix and Hydra. They had spotted them in photographs taken by the Hubbl…
November
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2 Nov
1815 Born: George BooleThe English mathematician and philosopher George Boole was born. Logic is the study of how we reason, and for centuries it had been treated as a ques…
Photo: Unknown author, Public domain
- 2 Nov 1868 New Zealand adopts one standard time for the whole countryNew Zealand officially chose a standard time to be used right across the country. An area where everyone keeps the same official time is called a tim…
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3 Nov
1749 Born: Daniel RutherfordThe Scottish doctor, chemist and botanist Daniel Rutherford was born. A botanist is a scientist who studies plants. Rutherford is best known for isol…
Photo: Henry Wright Kerr, Public domain
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3 Nov
1957 Laika the dog becomes the first animal to orbit the EarthThe Soviet Union launched Sputnik 2, carrying a dog called Laika. She had been a stray from the streets of Moscow, and she became the first animal to…
Photo: Laika ac from USA, CC BY-SA 2.0
- 4 Nov 1847 James Young Simpson discovers chloroform works as an anaestheticThe Scottish doctor James Young Simpson discovered that chloroform could be used as an anaesthetic. An anaesthetic is a drug that causes a temporary …
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4 Nov
1922 Howard Carter's team discovers the tomb of TutankhamunA team led by the British Egyptologist Howard Carter discovered the tomb of the pharaoh Tutankhamun in Egypt's Valley of the Kings. An Egyptologist i…
Photo: EditorfromMars, CC BY-SA 4.0
- 5 Nov 1892 Born: J. B. S. HaldaneThe British-born scientist J. B. S. Haldane, nicknamed ‘Jack’, was born. He worked on genetics, evolution, how bodies work and mathematics, and was l…
- 7 Nov 1687 Born: William StukeleyThe English antiquarian William Stukeley was born. An antiquarian is someone who studies objects and places from the distant past. Stukeley led the w…
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7 Nov
1934 Scientists collect the first tufted jays to be describedThe first tufted jays to be scientifically described were collected in Mexico. The tufted jay is a large bird in the crow family that lives only in a…
Photo: Ron Knight from Seaford, East Sussex, United Kingdom, CC BY 2.0
- 7 Nov 1949 Caspian Sea oil find leads to the world's first offshore oil platformOil was discovered beneath the Caspian Sea off the coast of Azerbaijan. This led to the building of Neft Daşları, the world's first offshore oil plat…
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8 Nov
1656 Born: Edmond HalleyThe English astronomer and mathematician Edmond Halley was born. He used Isaac Newton's law of gravity to work out how often a particular comet retur…
Photo: Thomas Murray, Public domain
- 8 Nov 1895 Wilhelm Röntgen discovers X-raysWhile experimenting with electricity, the German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen discovered X-rays, a form of high-energy radiation with shorter waves than…
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9 Nov
1907 King Edward VII is given the giant Cullinan DiamondThe Cullinan Diamond was presented to King Edward VII as a birthday gift from the government of the Transvaal Colony in South Africa. Found in 1905, …
Photo: Unknown author, Public domain
- 9 Nov 2005 Europe's Venus Express spacecraft sets off for VenusThe European Space Agency launched Venus Express from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. It was ESA's first mission to explore Venus. The spacecr…
- 10 Nov Every year World Science Day for Peace and DevelopmentWorld Science Day for Peace and Development is one of the special days marked by UNESCO, the United Nations organisation for education, science and c…
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10 Nov
1958 The Hope Diamond is sent to the Smithsonian by postNew York jeweller Harry Winston gave the famous Hope Diamond to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. Amazingly, he sent it by registered p…
Photo: David Bjorgen, CC BY-SA 3.0
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10 Nov
2008 NASA ends the mission of its Phoenix lander on MarsNASA declared its Phoenix mission over, after engineers were unable to contact the lander again. Phoenix had landed on Mars in May 2008 to study the …
Photo: NASA/JPL-Calech/University of Arizona, Corby Waste, Public domain
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11 Nov
1572 Tycho Brahe spots a bright new star in the skyDanish astronomer Tycho Brahe saw a bright new star in the constellation Cassiopeia. It was really a supernova, the huge explosion of a star, and it …
Photo: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO, Infrared: NASA/JPL-Caltech; Optical: MPIA, Calar Alto, O.Krause et al, Public domain
- 11 Nov 1675 Gottfried Leibniz uses integral calculus for the first timeGerman mathematician Gottfried Leibniz used integral calculus for the first time, to work out the area under a curve on a graph. Integration, as it i…
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11 Nov
1930 Albert Einstein gets a patent for his refrigeratorAlbert Einstein and his former student Leó Szilárd were granted a US patent for the Einstein refrigerator, which they had invented together. It had n…
Photo: Einstein/Szilard with annotations by P. Brandon Malloy, Public domain
- 12 Nov 1842 Born: John William Strutt, Lord RayleighJohn William Strutt, later Lord Rayleigh, was born. This British physicist explained why the sky is blue: very tiny particles scatter sunlight, an ef…
- 12 Nov 1990 Tim Berners-Lee publishes his plan for the World Wide WebEnglish computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee published a formal proposal for the World Wide Web. He had first suggested his new way of managing informa…
- 13 Nov 1833 The Great Meteor Storm lights up the night skyOn the night of 12 to 13 November, a spectacular storm of shooting stars filled the skies over North America. One estimate says more than 100,000 met…
- 14 Nov 1797 Born: Charles LyellScottish geologist Charles Lyell was born. In his famous book Principles of Geology, he explained that the Earth has been shaped by the same natural …
- 14 Nov 1967 Theodore Maiman is granted a patent for the first laserAmerican physicist Theodore Maiman was granted a patent for his ruby laser, the world's first laser. He had first fired it successfully on 16 May 196…
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15 Nov
1738 Born: William HerschelWilliam Herschel, the astronomer who discovered the planet Uranus, was born in Hanover, in what is now Germany. He played in a military band there be…
Photo: Lemuel Francis Abbott, Public domain
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15 Nov
1971 Intel releases the 4004, the first commercial microprocessorThe company Intel released the 4004, the world's first commercial microprocessor on a single chip. A microprocessor is like the brain of a computer, …
Photo: Peter1912 at German Wikipedia, Public domain
- 16 Nov 1904 John Ambrose Fleming patents the thermionic valveEnglish engineer John Ambrose Fleming was granted a patent for the thermionic valve, also known as a vacuum tube. A patent is an official record that…
- 16 Nov 1945 UNESCO is founded to build peace through learningUNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, was founded. Shaped by the Second World War, its mission is to build pe…
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16 Nov
1973 The last crew blasts off for the Skylab space stationNASA launched Skylab 4, the third and final crew to live on Skylab, America's first space station. Astronauts Gerald Carr, Edward Gibson and William …
Photo: NASA (Crew of Skylab 4), Public domain
- 16 Nov 1974 The Arecibo message is beamed out into spaceA radio message was sent into space from the Arecibo Telescope in Puerto Rico, at a ceremony to mark the telescope's remodelling. The message was mad…
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16 Nov
1992 A metal detectorist finds the Hoxne Hoard of Roman treasureEric Lawes was using a metal detector in the village of Hoxne in Suffolk. He found the largest hoard of late Roman silver and gold ever discovered in…
Photo: Photograph by Mike Peel (www.mikepeel.net), CC BY-SA 4.0
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17 Nov
1947 Scientists uncover the secret of the transistorAmerican physicists John Bardeen and Walter Brattain observed the basic principles of the transistor at Bell Labs. A transistor is a device that can …
Photo: Mister rf, CC BY-SA 4.0
- 18 Nov 1883 North American railways start using time zonesRailway companies in the United States and Canada began using four standard time zones. It happened on a day known as the 'day of two noons'. A time …
- 18 Nov 1897 Born: Patrick BlackettPatrick Blackett was a British physicist who won the 1948 Nobel Prize in Physics. In 1925 he became the first person to prove that radioactivity coul…
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18 Nov
2013 NASA launches the MAVEN spacecraft to MarsNASA launched the MAVEN spacecraft from Florida on its journey to Mars. It went into orbit around the planet in September 2014. MAVEN was NASA's firs…
Photo: NASA, Public domain
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21 Nov
1676 Ole Rømer shows that light travels at a measurable speedDanish astronomer Ole Rømer presented the first measurements of the speed of light. Working at the Royal Observatory in Paris, he carefully timed the…
Photo: Jacob Coning, Public domain
- 21 Nov 1877 Thomas Edison announces his invention of the phonographAmerican inventor Thomas Edison announced his invention of the phonograph, a machine that could record sound and play it back. Sounds were recorded a…
- 21 Nov 1905 Einstein's paper leading to E = mc² is publishedA scientific paper by Albert Einstein was published in the German journal Annalen der Physik. It led to his famous formula E = mc², which shows how m…
- 21 Nov 1953 Scientists reveal that Piltdown Man was a fakeThe Natural History Museum in London announced that the 'Piltdown Man' skull was a hoax. In 1912, Charles Dawson claimed he had found the remains of …
- 21 Nov 1969 The first permanent ARPANET link connects two computersThe first permanent link on the ARPANET joined computers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and a research centre called SRI. ARPANE…
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23 Nov
1887 Born: Henry MoseleyHenry Moseley was an English physicist, born in Weymouth in Dorset. By studying the X-rays given off by different elements, he showed that each eleme…
Photo: AIP Emilio Segre Visual Archives, W. F. Meggers Gallery of Nobel Laureates, Public domain
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23 Nov
1924 Edwin Hubble's evidence shows Andromeda is another galaxyThe New York Times reported evidence from the American astronomer Edwin Hubble about the Andromeda Nebula. Many people believed it was part of our ow…
Photo: Adam Evans, CC BY 2.0
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24 Nov
1859 Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species is publishedCharles Darwin's book On the Origin of Species was published, and the first copies sold out on the very first day. In it, Darwin explained his theory…
Photo: John Murray, Publisher, Public domain
- 24 Nov 1974 The fossil skeleton known as Lucy is found in EthiopiaScientists Donald Johanson and Tom Gray discovered a fossil skeleton in the Awash Valley of Ethiopia, in Africa. About 40 per cent of the skeleton wa…
- 25 Nov 1915 Albert Einstein presents the equations of general relativityAlbert Einstein presented the field equations of his theory of general relativity to the Prussian Academy of Sciences. The equations link the shape o…
- 26 Nov 2011 NASA launches the Curiosity rover on its way to MarsNASA launched its Mars Science Laboratory mission from Cape Canaveral, carrying the Curiosity rover. Curiosity landed safely in Gale Crater on Mars i…
- 27 Nov 1857 Born: Charles Scott SherringtonSir Charles Scott Sherrington was a British scientist who studied how the nervous system works. He showed that reflexes work through chains of connec…
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27 Nov
1895 Alfred Nobel signs the will that creates the Nobel PrizesThe Swedish chemist and inventor Alfred Nobel signed his last will. In it, he left most of his fortune to set up prizes for those who bring 'the grea…
Photo: Unknown author, Public domain
- 27 Nov 2001 Astronomers detect an atmosphere on a planet beyond our Solar SystemAstronomers announced that they had detected sodium in the atmosphere of HD 209458 b, a planet orbiting a distant star. It was the first time the atm…
- 28 Nov 1660 The Royal Society, the world's oldest science academy, is foundedTwelve thinkers, including Robert Boyle, John Wilkins and Christopher Wren, met at Gresham College in London. They decided to start a society to prom…
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28 Nov
1967 Jocelyn Bell Burnell spots the signal of the first known pulsarJocelyn Bell Burnell, a research student from Northern Ireland, noticed a 'bit of scruff' in data from a radio telescope. It turned out to be a signa…
Photo: Billthom, CC BY-SA 4.0
- 29 Nov 1849 Born: John Ambrose FlemingSir John Ambrose Fleming was an English electrical engineer and physicist, born in Lancaster. He designed the radio transmitter at Poldhu in Cornwall…
- 30 Nov 1803 The Balmis Expedition sets sail to vaccinate people against smallpoxA Spanish expedition led by the doctor Francisco Javier de Balmis set sail from A Coruña, Spain. Its aim was to vaccinate people against the disease …
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30 Nov
1936 Alan Turing describes the Turing machine, a key idea in computingThe English mathematician Alan Turing published the first details of what became known as the Turing machine. It is an imaginary machine that follows…
Photo: Elliott & Fry, Public domain
- 30 Nov 2022 The AI chatbot ChatGPT is launchedThe company OpenAI released ChatGPT, a chatbot that uses artificial intelligence, or AI. It uses computer programs called large language models to cr…
December
- 1 Dec 1959 Twelve countries sign the Antarctic TreatyTwelve countries signed the Antarctic Treaty, an agreement about how Antarctica should be used. It banned military activity there and set the contine…
- 1 Dec 2020 The giant Arecibo Telescope collapsesThe Arecibo Telescope in Puerto Rico collapsed. It was a radio telescope with a dish 305 metres wide, built into a natural sinkhole. When it was fini…
- 2 Dec 1759 Born: James Edward SmithSir James Edward Smith was an English botanist, a scientist who studies plants. He also studied fungi. He founded the Linnean Society of London, whic…
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2 Dec
1942 Enrico Fermi's team starts the first nuclear chain reactionScientists led by Enrico Fermi started the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction, in a reactor called Chicago Pile-1. It was the world's first…
Photo: Department of Energy-Office of Public Affairs, restored by Yann, Public domain
- 2 Dec 1982 Barney Clark receives the first permanent artificial heartAt the University of Utah in the United States, doctors gave Barney Clark the first permanent artificial heart. An artificial heart is a machine that…
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2 Dec
1993 Space Shuttle Endeavour sets off to fix the Hubble Space TelescopeNASA launched the Space Shuttle Endeavour from Florida on a mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope. Hubble had been launched in 1990. The astro…
Photo: NASA, Public domain
- 3 Dec 1967 Christiaan Barnard performs the first human heart transplantAt Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa, surgeon Christiaan Barnard carried out the first successful human heart transplant. A transplan…
- 3 Dec 1992 The world's first text message is sent in the UKNeil Papworth, a test engineer for the company Sema Group, sent the world's first text message. It travelled over the Vodafone mobile phone network i…
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3 Dec
2014 Japan launches Hayabusa2 to collect rock from an asteroidThe Japanese space agency, JAXA, launched the spacecraft Hayabusa2 on a six-year round trip to an asteroid. It reached the asteroid Ryugu in 2018, st…
Photo: DLR German Aerospace Center, CC BY 2.0
- 4 Dec 1639 Jeremiah Horrocks sees Venus cross the face of the SunThe English astronomers Jeremiah Horrocks and William Crabtree made the first successful observation of a transit of Venus. A transit is when a plane…
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4 Dec
1865 Born: Edith CavellEdith Cavell was a British nurse during the First World War. She cared for wounded soldiers from both sides without taking sides. She also helped aro…
Photo: The original uploader was Vivedatica at Dutch Wikipedia, Public domain
- 4 Dec 1998 Unity, the second part of the International Space Station, is launchedThe Unity module was launched. It was the second module of the International Space Station (ISS) and the first part built by the United States. This …
- 6 Dec 2006 NASA photos hint that there may be liquid water on MarsNASA showed photographs taken by its Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft that suggested there might be liquid water on Mars. The robotic probe had been c…
- 7 Dec 1904 Oil-powered HMS Spiteful is tested against a coal-fired shipThe Royal Navy began trials to compare two warships, HMS Spiteful and HMS Peterel. Spiteful was the first warship to be powered only by fuel oil inst…
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7 Dec
1995 The Galileo spacecraft arrives at JupiterNASA's Galileo spacecraft arrived at Jupiter, the largest planet in the Solar System. It had been launched more than six years earlier by the Space S…
Photo: NASA, Public domain
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7 Dec
2015 Japan's Akatsuki probe reaches orbit around Venus at lastThe Japanese space probe Akatsuki went into orbit around Venus to study its atmosphere. Its first attempt, five years earlier, had failed, so it spen…
Photo: 江戸村のとくぞう, CC BY-SA 4.0
- 8 Dec 2010 IKAROS, a spacecraft pushed by sunlight, flies past VenusThe Japanese spacecraft IKAROS flew past Venus at a distance of 80,800 kilometres, completing its planned mission. IKAROS was the first spacecraft to…
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9 Dec
1968 Douglas Engelbart shows off the first computer mouseIn San Francisco, Douglas Engelbart gave a famous demonstration that later became known as 'The Mother of All Demos'. He showed the computer mouse to…
Photo: Jordiipa, CC BY-SA 3.0
- 9 Dec 1979 Scientists confirm smallpox has been wiped outA commission of scientists for the World Health Organization (WHO) certified that smallpox had been eradicated, or wiped out, around the world. Small…
- 10 Dec 1684 Halley shows the Royal Society Newton's work on gravity and orbitsAstronomer Edmond Halley presented a paper by Isaac Newton to the Royal Society in London. In it, Newton used his theory of gravity to explain Kepler…
- 10 Dec 1768 The first Encyclopaedia Britannica comes out in EdinburghThe first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica was released in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was founded by Colin Macfarquhar and Andrew Bell, and nearly…
- 10 Dec 1799 France adopts the metre as its official unit of lengthFrance made the metre its official unit for measuring length. The metre is part of the metric system. Metric units are now the most common units in t…
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10 Dec
1815 Born: Ada LovelaceAda Lovelace was an English mathematician and writer. She worked on the Analytical Engine, a mechanical computer planned by Charles Babbage. She was …
Photo: Antoine Claudet, Public domain
- 10 Dec 1901 The first Nobel Prizes are awardedThe first Nobel Prizes were awarded, five years after the death of Alfred Nobel. Nobel was a Swedish chemist and inventor, best known for inventing d…
- 10 Dec 1993 County Durham's last coal mine, Wearmouth Colliery, closesThe last shift of miners left Wearmouth Colliery in Sunderland, and the pit closed. It had opened in 1835 on the north bank of the River Wear. It was…
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11 Dec
1781 Born: David BrewsterSir David Brewster was a Scottish scientist and inventor who studied light. In about 1815 he invented the kaleidoscope. It was a huge success, with 2…
Photo: Scottish Scientists, CC BY-SA 4.0
- 11 Dec 1997 The Kyoto Protocol to cut greenhouse gases is agreed in JapanCountries meeting in Kyoto, Japan, adopted the Kyoto Protocol, promising to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Greenhouse gases trap heat in the …
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12 Dec
1901 Marconi receives the first radio signal sent across the AtlanticGuglielmo Marconi received the first radio signal ever sent across the Atlantic Ocean. It was sent from Poldhu in Cornwall, England, and picked up at…
Photo: Pach Brothers, Public domain
- 13 Dec 1908 Born: Elizabeth AlexanderElizabeth Alexander was a British geologist and physicist. During the Second World War she worked with radar and radio, and her work led to early dis…
- 14 Dec 1900 Max Planck presents the idea that began quantum theoryGerman scientist Max Planck explained his law about the energy given off by hot objects to the Physical Society in Berlin. This work started quantum …
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14 Dec
1962 Mariner 2 becomes the first spacecraft to fly past VenusNASA's space probe Mariner 2 flew past Venus at a distance of about 34,854 kilometres. It was the first spacecraft to report back successfully from a…
Photo: NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Public domain
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15 Dec
1916 Born: Maurice WilkinsMaurice Wilkins was a New Zealand-born British scientist who won a Nobel Prize. At King's College London he led early studies of DNA using X-rays. Hi…
Photo: The original uploader was C. Goemans at German Wikipedia, Public domain
- 17 Dec 1665 The first account of a blood transfusion is publishedThe first written account of a blood transfusion was published in the Royal Society's journal, Philosophical Transactions. It was a letter from the p…
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17 Dec
1778 Born: Humphry DavySir Humphry Davy was a British chemist and inventor. He invented the Davy lamp, a lamp that could be used safely in coal mines. Using electricity, he…
Photo: Thomas Phillips, Public domain
- 17 Dec 1938 Otto Hahn discovers nuclear fissionGerman chemist Otto Hahn discovered nuclear fission, working with Lise Meitner and Fritz Strassmann. Fission happens when the nucleus, or centre, of …
- 18 Dec 1856 Born: J. J. ThomsonSir J. J. Thomson was a British physicist. In 1897 he showed that cathode rays were made of tiny particles with a negative electric charge, much smal…
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19 Dec
2013 ESA launches Gaia to map a billion starsThe European Space Agency launched the Gaia spacecraft, which worked until 2025. Its job was to measure the positions, distances and movements of sta…
- 20 Dec 1951 Nuclear power lights up four light bulbs in IdahoExperimental Breeder Reactor I, in the desert near Arco in Idaho, USA, made enough electricity to light four 200-watt light bulbs. It was one of the …
- 21 Dec 1872 HMS Challenger sets sail to explore the world's oceansHMS Challenger left Portsmouth, England, on a scientific voyage around the world that lasted until 1876. Scientists on board measured the depth of th…
- 22 Dec Every year National Mathematics Day (India)India celebrates National Mathematics Day on 22 December, the birthday of the mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan, who was born in 1887. He began his r…
- 22 Dec 1891 Brucia becomes the first asteroid discovered using photographyThe asteroid 323 Brucia became the first asteroid to be discovered using astrophotography, which means taking photographs of the night sky. Asteroids…
- 22 Dec 1971 The charity Doctors Without Borders is founded in ParisThe charity Médecins Sans Frontières, which is French for Doctors Without Borders, was founded in Paris, France. Its founders were the doctor Bernard…
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23 Dec
1947 The transistor is demonstrated for the first timeThe first transistor, invented by William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain, was demonstrated at Bell Laboratories in New Jersey, USA. A tra…
Photo: Mister rf, CC BY-SA 4.0
- 23 Dec 1954 Surgeons carry out the first successful kidney transplantA team of American surgeons carried out the world's first successful kidney transplant. In a transplant, an organ from one person is given to another…
- 23 Dec 1997 The rare Anglo-Saxon Pioneer Helmet goes on displayThe Pioneer Helmet went on public display for the first time, at the New Walk Museum in Leicester. Made by the Anglo-Saxons in the late 600s, it had …
- 24 Dec 1818 Born: James Prescott JouleJames Prescott Joule was an English physicist who studied heat. He discovered how heat is linked to mechanical work, the energy used to make things m…
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25 Dec
1642 Born: Isaac NewtonIsaac Newton was an English mathematician and physicist and one of the most important scientists in history. He worked out the laws of motion and the…
Photo: Godfrey Kneller, Public domain
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25 Dec
1758 Halley's Comet returns, just as Edmond Halley predictedGerman astronomer Johann Georg Palitzsch spotted a comet in the sky on Christmas Day. Its return had been predicted in 1705 by the English astronomer…
Photo: NASA/W. Liller, Public domain
- 25 Dec 1990 Tim Berners-Lee finishes WorldWideWeb, the first web browserBy Christmas Day, the British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee had finished the first version of WorldWideWeb, the first web browser. A web browser…
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25 Dec
2003 Britain's Beagle 2 lander arrives at Mars on Christmas DayBeagle 2, a British lander carried to Mars by the European Space Agency's Mars Express mission, was due to land on Christmas Day. Named after Charles…
Photo: user:geni, CC BY-SA 4.0
- 25 Dec 2021 The James Webb Space Telescope is launchedThe James Webb Space Telescope was launched into space on an Ariane 5 rocket. It is the largest telescope in space and studies infrared light, which …
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26 Dec
1780 Born: Mary SomervilleMary Somerville was a Scottish scientist and writer, born in Jedburgh, who studied mathematics and astronomy. In 1835 she and Caroline Herschel becam…
Photo: Thomas Phillips, Public domain
- 26 Dec 1791 Born: Charles BabbageCharles Babbage was an English mathematician, inventor and engineer. He came up with the idea of a programmable computer and is sometimes called the …
- 26 Dec 1898 Marie and Pierre Curie announce the discovery of radiumMarie and Pierre Curie told the French Academy of Sciences in Paris that they had discovered a new chemical element. They named it radium and had fou…
- 26 Dec 1980 Mysterious lights are reported in Rendlesham Forest, SuffolkWitnesses reported the first of several sightings of unexplained lights near RAF Woodbridge, in Rendlesham Forest, Suffolk. At the time, the air base…
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27 Dec
1831 HMS Beagle sets sail from Plymouth with Charles Darwin aboardHMS Beagle, a Royal Navy ship, sailed from Plymouth, England, on a survey voyage that lasted until October 1836. Its captain, Robert FitzRoy, wanted …
Photo: R. T. Pritchett, Public domain
- 27 Dec 2004 A record-breaking blast from a distant magnetar reaches EarthRadiation from a huge explosion on a magnetar called SGR 1806−20 reached Earth. A magnetar is a small, very dense type of star with an extremely powe…
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28 Dec
1612 Galileo becomes the first person to see NeptuneThe Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei became the first person to observe the planet Neptune, although he mistook it for a star. Neptune is the eight…
- 28 Dec 1882 Born: Arthur EddingtonArthur Eddington was an English astrophysicist and mathematician. Around 1920 he was the first to suggest, correctly, that stars shine by fusing hydr…
- 28 Dec 1895 Wilhelm Röntgen publishes his discovery of X-raysThe German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen published a paper describing a new kind of radiation that he had discovered. These rays later became known as X-…
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29 Dec
1959 Richard Feynman imagines building things atom by atomThe American physicist Richard Feynman gave a talk called 'There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom' at Caltech in California. He suggested that scientis…
Photo: NASA, Public domain
- 30 Dec 2020 The Oxford–AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine is approved in the UKThe UK's medicines regulator approved the Oxford–AstraZeneca vaccine for use in the national vaccination programme. The vaccine protects against COVI…
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31 Dec
1853 A New Year's Eve dinner is held inside a model IguanodonTo celebrate the launch of his dinosaur models, the sculptor Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins held a New Year's Eve dinner. It took place inside the mould…
Photo: Unknown author, Public domain
- 31 Dec 1994 Kiribati skips a whole day by changing its time zonesIn Kiribati, a country of islands in the Pacific Ocean, this date was skipped altogether. Its Phoenix Islands and Line Islands moved to new time zone…