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#Today in 1882, the first string of electric lights decorating a Christmas tree was created for his home by Edward H. Johnson, an associate of Thomas Edison ow.ly/Spbd30n5jN5
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Born 135 years ago #Today, Srinivasa Ramanujan had almost no formal training in pure mathematics but made substantial contributions to analysis, number theory and continued fractions, including solutions to mathematical problems considered to be unsolvable bit.ly/2zhi5ix
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54 years ago #Today, Apollo 8 was launched: the first crewed spacecraft to leave low Earth orbit, reach the Moon, orbit it, and safely return go.nasa.gov/2h2mWLn
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#Today in 2015, SpaceX flight 20 (also known as Orbcomm OG2 M2) was the first in which the booster of an orbital rocket made a successful return and vertical landing
[full coverage: buff.ly/3WtIg0y]
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215 years ago #Today, Jean-Baptiste Fourier's memoir "On the Propagation of Heat in Solid Bodies", was read to the Paris Institute: an important mathematical work, containing what we now call Fourier series, which he had worked upon since around 1804 bit.ly/2pc4VE7
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The 2022 December Solstice, the first day of winter in planet Earth's northern hemisphere and summer in the southern one, is #Today at 21:48 UTC
[read more: buff.ly/2A2nwUZ ]
[you can see a solstice from space: buff.ly/30ZoaBV]
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#Today in 1888, the Cliff Palace at Mesa Verde, Colorado, was rediscovered by rancher Richard Wetherill. In the 1200s, the Anasazi, an ancient pueblo people, built 150 rooms and 23 large, round kivas within a large rock shelter, high on a cliff buff.ly/3G15Axh
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119 years ago #Today, two Ohio brothers – Wilbur & Orville Wright – made the first bonafide, crewed, heavier-than-air flight bit.ly/2gVOyFh
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#Today in 1994, Netscape Navigator 1.0 browser was released
[read more: buff.ly/3DxBVuq]
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Born #Today in 1923, Freeman Dyson was a legendary theoretical physicist and visionary technologist. He helped create modern particle physics, criticized nuclear weapons tests, and imagined how civilizations could take to the stars [read more: buff.ly/2Pt6mZp]
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This is possibly one of the most awesome pictures taken on the Moon: Jack Schmitt, (the only scientist who practiced geology on another world), with the US flag and the Earth (plus Gene Cernan reflected in his visor), 50 years ago #Today go.nasa.gov/2iU2AYp #Apollo17
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55 years ago #Today, the Concorde, the joint British-French venture and the world's first supersonic airliner, was unveiled in Toulouse, France bit.ly/2kpX8gi
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111 years ago #Today, in Stockholm, Sweden, Marie Skłodowska Curie became the first person to be awarded a second Nobel prize. She's still the only person awarded with two Nobel prizes in two different branches of science bit.ly/2kn2vfT
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Born #Today in 1815, Ada Lovelace was mathematician and writer, chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage's proposed mechanical general-purpose computer. She is often regarded as the first computer programmer
[read more: buff.ly/2Pop1Do]
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Born #Today in 1906, Grace Hopper was computer scientist, pioneer of computer programming, developer of COBOL and United States Navy rear admiral
[read more: bit.ly/2BoBNyG]
[gif by Angela Hsieh: ow.ly/nUXQ30mV25I]
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50 years ago #Today, the crew of Apollo 17 took the iconic "Blue Marble" photo. The last time human eyes saw this amazing view from a spacecraft go.nasa.gov/2joIFBx
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50 years ago #Today, Apollo 17 launched the last men to have walked on the Moon, on the last Saturn V rocket to fly with a crew (so powerful you could even see shockwaves) bit.ly/2jp92Hv
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53 years ago #Today, the nascent #ARPANET grew to four nodes when ARPA connected computer network nodes at four universities. This is the chart of all the Internet at the end of 1969 bit.ly/2iTcUn3
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70 years ago #Today, a dense smog descended on London, England, that would last four days, causing at least 4,000 deaths and chaos for transportation as visibility was reduced to a few hundred yards bit.ly/2AVIVBW
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The true story of history's only known meteorite victim. Ann Hodges was hit by a meteorite in her Alabama home #Today in 1954 bit.ly/2AIY3CY
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50 years ago #Today, one of the earliest arcade video games, #Pong, was originally released by Atari bit.ly/1JQZDlB
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53 years ago #Today, the Apollo 12 crew landed on the Moon. This is the Intrepid Lunar Module prior to the descent. The largest crater is Ptolemaeus go.nasa.gov/2fV0eoE
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Intel announced its 4004 processor #Today in 1971, the first commercially available microprocessor. It held 2300 transistors & delivered the same computing power as the first electronic computer built in 1946, which, in contrast, filled a room [read more: buff.ly/3tsw3wO]
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Born #Today in 1891, Frederick Grant Banting was the physician who, assisted by Charles H. Best, was the first to extract in 1921 the hormone insulin from the pancreas. From 1991, #WorldDiabetesDay is celebrated on November 14
[read more: buff.ly/3Ttiyra]
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53 years ago #Today, the Apollo 12 Saturn V was about to launch (16:22 UTC) to achieve the second successful Moon landing bit.ly/1MBvWAp
