On this day in science and progress

The landmark days

1. January 1 The Emancipation Proclamation takes effect 1863
2. January 2 The first spacecraft flies by the Moon 1959
3. January 3 The first landing on the far side of the Moon 2019
4. January 7 Galileo finds moons circling Jupiter 1610
5. January 12 Deep Impact sets off to strike a comet 2005
6. January 13 The National Geographic Society is founded 1888
7. January 14 A probe lands on Saturn's moon Titan 2005
8. January 16 Two crewed spacecraft dock for the first time 1969
9. January 18 The cause of Legionnaires' disease is found 1977
10. January 21 Concorde begins carrying passengers 1976
11. January 22 The jumbo jet enters service 1970
12. January 23 Insulin first saves a patient's life 1922
13. January 25 The Opportunity rover lands on Mars 2004
14. January 27 Edison patents the electric light 1880
15. January 28 Lego patents its brick 1958
16. January 29 The first automobile is patented 1886
17. January 30 The first modern suspension bridge opens 1826
18. January 31 America's first satellite finds the radiation belts 1958
19. February 1 The first Oxford English Dictionary volume appears 1884
20. February 5 The first synthetic plastic is announced 1907
21. February 6 Falcon Heavy flies for the first time 2018
22. February 8 Dmitri Mendeleev is born 1834
23. February 9 Halley's Comet swings past on its long orbit 1986
24. February 11 Gravitational waves are detected 2016
25. February 12 Charles Darwin is born 1809
26. February 13 Astronomers find a star that is a giant diamond 2004
27. February 15 The human genome is published 2001
28. February 17 The first mission to an asteroid sets off 1996
29. February 18 Pluto is discovered 1930
30. February 20 John Glenn orbits the Earth 1962
31. February 22 Dolly the cloned sheep is revealed 1997
32. February 24 Steve Jobs is born 1955
33. February 25 Ida Noddack is born 1896
34. February 27 Carbon-14 is discovered 1940
35. February 28 The double helix is worked out 1953
36. February 29 Hattie McDaniel wins an Academy Award 1940
37. March 1 Radioactivity is discovered by accident 1896
38. March 2 The top quark is found 1995
39. March 4 The first blood test for HIV is approved 1985
40. March 5 The air brake makes trains safe to stop 1872
41. March 6 Joseph von Fraunhofer is born 1787
42. March 7 The inventor of photography is born 1765
43. March 8 The first woman earns a pilot's license 1910
44. March 9 Yuri Gagarin is born 1934
45. March 10 The first words spoken by telephone 1876
46. March 11 Urbain Le Verrier is born 1811
47. March 13 A new planet doubles the solar system 1781
48. March 14 Albert Einstein is born 1879
49. March 16 The first liquid-fueled rocket takes flight 1926
50. March 18 The first walk in space 1965
51. March 19 The Sydney Harbour Bridge opens 1932
52. March 21 Joseph Fourier is born 1768
53. March 22 Comet Hale-Bopp comes closest to Earth 1997
54. March 24 The cause of tuberculosis is revealed 1882
55. March 28 The second asteroid is discovered 1802
56. April 2 The Sun is photographed for the first time 1845
57. April 4 Microsoft is founded 1975
58. April 5 Joseph Lister is born 1827
59. April 7 The World Health Organization is born 1948
60. April 8 Electricity is found to flow with no resistance 1911
61. April 9 A human voice is recorded for the first time 1860
62. April 10 The first picture of a black hole 2019
63. April 11 James Parkinson is born 1755
64. April 12 The polio vaccine is declared safe and effective 1955
65. April 13 The first navigation satellite reaches orbit 1960
66. April 15 Leonardo da Vinci is born 1452
67. April 16 The first woman flies across the English Channel 1912
68. April 18 The World Court holds its first session 1946
69. April 20 Spontaneous generation is disproved 1862
70. April 21 The Space Age World's Fair opens in Seattle 1962
71. April 22 The first Earth Day 1970
72. April 24 The Hubble Space Telescope reaches orbit 1990
73. April 25 The DNA double helix is revealed 1953
74. April 29 The world outlaws chemical weapons 1997
75. May 3 Halley predicts an eclipse to the minute 1715
76. May 4 Magellan sets off to map Venus 1989
77. May 5 The first American in space 1961
78. May 6 The four-minute mile is broken 1954
79. May 7 Edwin Land, father of instant photos, is born 1909
80. May 8 Smallpox is declared eradicated 1980
81. May 9 The idea that became the EU is proposed 1950
82. May 11 A computer beats the world chess champion 1997
83. May 12 Florence Nightingale is born 1820
84. May 13 Brazil abolishes slavery 1888
85. May 14 The first vaccination 1796
86. May 15 The Flying Doctor takes to the air 1928
87. May 16 The first laser shines 1960
88. May 17 Segregated schools are ruled unconstitutional 1954
89. May 18 The first woman breaks the sound barrier 1953
90. May 19 The centigrade thermometer takes shape 1743
91. May 20 The first controlled clinical trial begins 1747
92. May 21 The first solo flight across the Atlantic 1927
93. May 22 Lincoln patents a way to lift boats 1849
94. May 23 John Bardeen is born 1908
95. May 24 The telegraph sends its first message 1844
96. May 25 Kennedy commits to landing on the Moon 1961
97. May 26 Sally Ride is born 1951
98. May 29 An eclipse confirms Einstein's relativity 1919
99. May 31 The inventor of the Petri dish is born 1852
100. June 1 Colossus, an early digital computer, goes to work 1944
101. June 3 The first American walks in space 1965
102. June 4 The first public flight of a hot air balloon 1783
103. June 5 A new state of matter is created 1995
104. June 6 The first drive-in movie theater opens 1933
105. June 8 The inventor of the World Wide Web is born 1955
106. June 10 The Spirit rover launches for Mars 2003
107. June 12 The first ride of the bicycle's ancestor 1817
108. June 13 James Clerk Maxwell is born 1831
109. June 15 Magna Carta puts the king under the law 1215
110. June 16 The first woman in space 1963
111. June 17 The Statue of Liberty arrives in New York 1885
112. June 18 The first American woman in space 1983
113. June 19 Freedom reaches the last enslaved Americans 1865
114. June 21 The first stored-program computer runs 1948
115. June 23 Alan Turing is born 1912
116. June 24 Ancient Rome opens a new aqueduct 109
117. June 25 The rainbow pride flag first flies 1978
118. June 26 The first draft of the human genome is announced 2000
119. June 27 The first nuclear power plant lights the grid 1954
120. June 28 Maria Goeppert Mayer is born 1906
121. June 29 The first iPhone goes on sale 2007
122. June 30 Einstein publishes special relativity 1905
123. July 1 Darwin and Wallace reveal natural selection 1858
124. July 2 The first Zeppelin takes to the air 1900
125. July 3 The first automobile drives in public 1886
126. July 4 Physicists find the Higgs boson 2012
127. July 5 Newton publishes the Principia 1687
128. July 6 Pasteur's rabies vaccine saves a boy 1885
129. July 7 The first international wildlife treaty is signed 1911
130. July 8 The final Space Shuttle mission launches 2011
131. July 9 Scientists sound the alarm on nuclear war 1955
132. July 10 One of the first open-heart surgeries 1893
133. July 11 NASA charts the course to the Moon 1962
134. July 12 George Eastman, who made photography for everyone, is born 1854
135. July 13 The first two-way flight across the Atlantic by air 1919
136. July 14 New Horizons reaches Pluto 2015
137. July 15 Cold War rivals shake hands in space 1975
138. July 16 Apollo 11 launches toward the Moon 1969
139. July 17 The first photograph of a star 1850
140. July 18 Gemini 10 advances the road to the Moon 1966
141. July 19 The first GPS signal is transmitted 1977
142. July 20 Humans walk on the Moon 1969
143. July 21 The Space Shuttle era comes to a close 2011
144. July 22 The first animals to fly to space and return safely 1951
145. July 23 The first satellite to watch over Earth 1972
146. July 24 Apollo 11 returns safely home 1969
147. July 25 The first IVF baby is born 1978
148. July 26 The first satellite to hover over one spot 1963
149. July 27 Insulin is discovered 1921
150. July 28 The Flying Fortress takes its first flight 1935
151. July 29 NASA is founded 1958
152. July 30 Medicare and Medicaid are signed into law 1965
153. July 31 The first close-up pictures of the Moon 1964
154. August 1 Slavery is abolished across the British Empire 1834
155. August 2 The antimatter positron is discovered 1932
156. August 3 The first voyage under the North Pole 1958
157. August 4 The Phoenix lander launches to seek Martian ice 2007
158. August 5 Neil Armstrong is born 1930
159. August 6 The World Wide Web opens to the public 1991
160. August 7 The scientist who stopped a birth-defect tragedy is honored 1962
161. August 8 The first ascent of Mont Blanc 1786
162. August 9 Smokey Bear begins protecting the forests 1944
163. August 10 The Magellan probe reaches Venus 1990
164. August 11 A Hollywood star patents the tech behind Wi-Fi 1942
165. August 12 The first antiseptic surgery 1865
166. August 13 Stainless steel is born 1913
167. August 14 Social Security is signed into law 1935
168. August 15 The Panama Canal opens 1914
169. August 16 The first message crosses the Atlantic by cable 1858
170. August 17 The first balloon crosses the Atlantic 1978
171. August 18 Helium is discovered in the Sun 1868
172. August 19 Orville Wright is born 1871
173. August 20 Voyager 2 begins its grand tour 1977
174. August 21 The first practical adding machine is patented 1888
175. August 22 The first Geneva Convention is signed 1864
176. August 23 The first view of Earth from the Moon 1966
177. August 24 Windows 95 brings computing to the mainstream 1995
178. August 25 Voyager 2 reaches Neptune 1989
179. August 26 American women win the right to vote 1920
180. August 27 The first hydrogen balloon flies 1783
181. August 28 Herschel discovers Saturn's moon Enceladus 1789
182. August 29 Faraday discovers electromagnetic induction 1831
183. August 30 Ernest Rutherford is born 1871
184. August 31 A cholera outbreak launches modern epidemiology 1854
185. September 1 The wreck of the Titanic is found 1985
186. September 2 The Sun unleashes its greatest recorded storm 1859
187. September 3 Viking 2 lands on Mars 1976
188. September 5 Voyager 1 begins its journey 1977
189. September 6 The first voyage around the world is completed 1522
190. September 7 The first all-electronic television image 1927
191. September 8 Star Trek beams onto television 1966
192. September 9 The first computer bug is found 1947
193. September 11 Mars Global Surveyor reaches the red planet 1997
194. September 12 The Lascaux cave paintings are found 1940
195. September 13 The first spacecraft reaches the Moon 1959
196. September 14 Gravitational waves are detected at last 2015
197. September 15 Darwin reaches the Galapagos Islands 1835
198. September 16 The world unites to save the ozone layer 1987
199. September 19 Ötzi the Iceman emerges from the ice 1991
200. September 20 The first voyage around the world sets sail 1519
201. September 21 The first woman joins the Supreme Court 1981
202. September 22 Michael Faraday is born 1791
203. September 23 Neptune is found by mathematics 1846
204. September 26 One man's judgment prevents a nuclear war 1983
205. September 27 Egyptian hieroglyphs are deciphered 1822
206. September 28 Penicillin is discovered 1928
207. October 3 East and West Germany become one again 1990
208. October 4 The Space Age begins 1957
209. October 6 The first planet around another sun is found 1995
210. October 7 The first look at the Moon's far side 1959
211. October 8 Cesar Milstein is born 1927
212. October 10 Neptune's big moon Triton is found 1846
213. October 14 The sound barrier is broken 1947
214. October 15 Cassini sets off for Saturn 1997
215. October 16 The first public demonstration of anaesthesia 1846
216. October 18 The first all-woman spacewalk 2019
217. October 19 The first cure for tuberculosis is found 1943
218. October 21 The meter is redefined by the speed of light 1983
219. October 22 Edison's lamp burns through the night 1879
220. October 23 The iPod puts a thousand songs in your pocket 2001
221. October 24 The United Nations is born 1945
222. October 25 The U.S. Army gets its first Black general 1940
223. October 26 The last natural case of smallpox 1977
224. October 29 The first message travels the internet's ancestor 1969
225. October 30 Gerhard Domagk is born 1895
226. October 31 People start living in space, and never stop 2000
227. November 1 The great Arecibo radio telescope opens 1963
228. November 3 Laika becomes the first creature to orbit Earth 1957
229. November 4 The tomb of Tutankhamun is found 1922
230. November 6 The inventor of basketball is born 1861
231. November 7 Marie Curie is born 1867
232. November 8 X-rays are discovered 1895
233. November 9 The Berlin Wall opens 1989
234. November 11 A new star shakes the heavens 1572
235. November 13 The Holland Tunnel opens under the Hudson 1927
236. November 14 The first spacecraft to orbit another planet 1971
237. November 15 William Herschel, who found a new planet, is born 1738
238. November 17 The first wheeled robot rolls across another world 1970
239. November 20 The first piece of the space station reaches orbit 1998
240. November 21 The first humans rise into the sky 1783
241. November 22 The first airmail flight across the Pacific 1935
242. November 23 The universe turns out to be far bigger than we knew 1924
243. November 24 Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species 1859
244. November 25 Einstein completes general relativity 1915
245. November 27 Alfred Nobel signs away his fortune to reward discovery 1895
246. November 28 The Royal Society is founded 1660
247. December 1 Rosa Parks keeps her seat 1955
248. December 2 The first controlled nuclear chain reaction 1942
249. December 3 The first human heart transplant 1967
250. December 5 Fusion gives back more energy than it took in 2022
251. December 6 The first protease inhibitor for HIV is approved 1995
252. December 8 The discoverer of photosynthesis is born 1730
253. December 9 A demo shows the world what computers could become 1968
254. December 10 The world agrees on universal human rights 1948
255. December 12 The first radio signal crosses the Atlantic 1901
256. December 13 Werner von Siemens is born 1816
257. December 14 The first people reach the South Pole 1911
258. December 16 Arthur C. Clarke is born 1917
259. December 17 The first powered airplane flight 1903
260. December 19 Gaia sets out to map the galaxy in 3D 2013
261. December 20 Atomic energy lights its first four bulbs 1951
262. December 21 The Curies discover radium 1898
263. December 22 Srinivasa Ramanujan is born 1887
264. December 23 The transistor is born at Bell Labs 1947
265. December 24 The first humans orbit the Moon and see Earth rise 1968
266. December 25 The James Webb Space Telescope launches 2021
267. December 30 Tu Youyou is born 1930
268. December 31 Karl Benz patents his first engine 1878