Inventions, firsts, and turning points tied to today’s date — each one sourced and dated.
Built largely from leftover spacecraft parts, NASA's Magellan slipped into Venusian orbit to lift the veil on a hidden world.
A British scientist who never set foot in America left his fortune to found a place "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge."
King Charles II wanted better star charts for sailors lost at sea, so he built an observatory on a Greenwich hilltop.
Five small ships slipped out of Seville bound for a voyage that would prove, for the first time, that the world could be sailed all the way around.
