1492
The first meteorite impact to be precisely dated occured at approximately noon in a field of wheat field outside Ensisheim, Alsace, France. The retrieved remains were dubbed the The Ensisheim Meteorite.
1631
Pierre Gassendi became the first astronomer in history to observe the transit of a planet. When Gassendi observed Mercury passing across the Sun using a Galilean telescope that projected the image onto a paper screen, he proved the predictions of Johannes Kepler true.
1918
Dr. Robert Goddard first demonstrated a tube-launched solid propellant rocket. The demonstration was the result of Goddard's work for the military, which began in 1917 and resulted in
the development of the bazooka for World War II.
1932
The radio series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century premiered. The show, based on two novellas published in Amazing Stories by Philip Francis Nowlan, would be largely responsible for popularizing the science fiction genre in the thirties and forties and paving the way for the genre's rise to further prominence in the televised mediums of the fifties and sixties.
1938
Robert Goddard began research on the rocket fuel pumps, which he believed would be critical to achieving higher altitudes in future models.
1959
The Soviet spaceprobe Luna 3 photographs roughly seventy percent of the Moon's surface in a series of twenty-nine photographs over the course of fourty minutes. The photos were developed on-board, scanned, and transmitted to Earth via facsimile on October 18, 1959.
1966
NASA launched the Lunar Orbiter 2 space probe is launched on a mission to select potential landing sites for future Surveyor and Apollo Moon missions.
1968
Two NASA investigation boards reported that the May 6th accident that resulted in the destruction of lunar landing research vehicle No. 1 was caused by a loss of attitude control when the Helium in the propellant tanks required to force the hydrogen peroxide propellant in its attitude-control lift rockets was prematurely depleted. The pilot on board - Neil A. Armstrong, ejected safely.
1984
The second mission of the Space Shuttle Discovery is cancelled
due to dangerously high shear winds. (STS-51-A)
1996
NASA launched the Mars Global Surveyor spaceprobe on a mission to Mars.
1998
John Glenn returned to Earth aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery at the successful conclusion of a nine-day mission during which he became the oldest person in history to go into space. (STS-95)