◆ On this day

August 10

4 sourced moments from August 10 in history: Magellan's Fleet Set Off to Circumnavigate the Globe (1519); Royal Observatory Greenwich was founded on 10 August 1675; The Smithsonian was founded in 1846 after a 10-year fight, plus 1 more.

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4 things happened on August 10

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1990 Space · Solar System

Magellan reached Venus in 1990 and mapped 98% of it

NASA's Magellan, built partly from spare parts, arrived at Venus on August 10, 1990 — and its 30-year-old radar images still yield discoveries.

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1846 Science · The Scientific Method

The Smithsonian was founded in 1846 after a 10-year fight

A British chemist who never saw America left it a fortune in 1829; Congress took ten years and a narrow 85–76 vote to decide what to do with it.

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1675 Space · Astrophysics

Royal Observatory Greenwich was founded on 10 August 1675

Flamsteed laid the first stone at 3:14 p.m., after casting a horoscope for the founding, on a salary that had to buy his own instruments.

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1519 Geography · Borders & Maps

Magellan's Fleet Set Off to Circumnavigate the Globe

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.

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