◆ On this day

March 13

4 sourced moments from March 13 in history: The Day Harvard Got Its Name (1639); William Herschel discovered Uranus — Flamsteed saw it first (1781); Pluto's discovery was kept quiet for 23 days in 1930, plus 1 more.

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4 things happened on March 13

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1986 Society & Economy · Business & Markets

Microsoft went public

Microsoft's stock hit the market at $21 a share, raised $61 million in a day, and quietly minted a generation of millionaires.

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1930 Space · Solar System

Pluto's discovery was kept quiet for 23 days in 1930

Clyde Tombaugh spotted Pluto on February 18, but Lowell Observatory waited more than three weeks, then broke the news through Harvard on a carefully chosen date.

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1781 Space · Solar System

William Herschel discovered Uranus — Flamsteed saw it first

Herschel spotted Uranus from his Bath garden in 1781, but England's first Astronomer Royal had catalogued it as a star 91 years earlier.

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1639 Society & Economy · Politics & Law

The Day Harvard Got Its Name

A dying clergyman's gift of books and money won the new colonial college a name that would outlast empires.

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