1879: Albert Einstein, one of the most influential physicists in history, is born in Ulm, Germany. He would go on to develop the theory of relativity and make groundbreaking contributions to the field of quantum mechanics.
1794: Eli Whitney patents the cotton gin, a machine that revolutionized the cotton industry in the United States and increased the efficiency of separating cotton fiber from seeds.
1900: Physicist Wolfgang Pauli, known for his work on the Pauli exclusion principle and quantum mechanics, is born in Vienna, Austria.
1910: The first seaplane takes flight, piloted by Frenchman Henri Fabre. This event is considered a major milestone in the history of aviation.
1951: The first-ever thermonuclear weapon, also known as a hydrogen bomb, is successfully tested by the United States at the Eniwetok Atoll in the Pacific Ocean.
1986: The European Space Agency’s Giotto spacecraft makes the closest approach to Halley’s Comet, collecting valuable data and images of the comet’s nucleus.
2016: Scientists announce the detection of gravitational waves, ripples in the fabric of spacetime caused by the collision of two black holes. This groundbreaking discovery confirmed a prediction made by Einstein’s theory of general relativity a century earlier.