On May 5, 1961, American astronaut Alan Shepard (November 18, 1923 – July 21, 1998) performed the first United States human spaceflight. It was also the first human-piloted spaceflight in the history of space exploration. Yuri Gagarin, the first human to fly into space on April 12, 1961, wasn’t controlling the Vostok 1 spacecraft, it was controlled by a computer.
On May 2, 1800, English chemist William Nicholson (13 December 1753 – 21 May 1815), decomposed water into hydrogen and oxygen using electricity. This was the first electrolysis of water. The name “electrolysis” was given to this process in 1834 by another English scientist Michael Faraday (22 September 1791 – 25 August 1867).
Nicholson had been working with Anthony Carlisle (15 February 1768 – 2 November 1840), a London surgeon, experimenting with the Italian scientist Allesandro Volta’s (18 February 1745 – 5 March 1827) voltaic pile (see notes 1).
On May 1, 1949, Neptune’s Moon Nereid was discovered by the Dutch astronomer and planetary scientist Gerard Kuiper, who is the eponymous namesake of the Kuiper belt. Nereid is also named Neptune II because it is the second moon of Neptune to be discovered. It is also the last satellite of Neptune to be discovered before Voyager 2‘s discoveries in 1989.
On April 30, 1897, British physicist and Nobel Laureate in Physics, Sir Joseph John Thomson (commonly known as J. J. Thompson, 18 December 1856 – 30 August 1940) announced the existence of electrons.
Thompson called the particles “corpuscles”, meaning “small bodies”, but later scientific community preferred the name electron which had been suggested by the Irish physicist George Johnstone Stoney in 1891 because these particles are the fundamental unit of electricity (see notes 1).
The word electron is a combination of the words electric and ion (a suffix, appearing in words of Latin origin, denoting action or condition). The suffix -on which is now used to designate other subatomic particles, such as a proton or neutron, is in turn derived from electron.
Dinosaurs were a very unique group of reptiles that existed as early as 243 million years ago. This extinct group had incredible diversity and roamed the earth for over 165 million years. As the earth itself went through drastic changes, dinosaurs changed too. From the skies to the seas, these prehistoric reptiles adapted and were able to live in many different environments.
From 3 different extinctions, the rise of the first dinosaurs, to the origins of the T. rex, if you are curious about the story of the dinosaurs, keep reading…
There are several ways we can measure the progress of human civilization. Population growth, the rise and fall of empires, and our technological ability to reach for the stars. But one simple measure is to calculate the amount of energy humans use at any given time. As humanity has spread and advanced, our ability to harness energy is one of our most useful skills. If one assumes civilizations on other planets might possess similar skills, the energy consumption of a species is a good rough measure of its technological prowess. This is the idea behind the Kardashev Scale.
On April 24, 1990, Hubble Space Telescope was launched into Low Earth Orbit (LEO) from the space shuttle Discovery (STS-31). It orbits the Earth at an altitude of about 350 miles (560 kilometers). For comparison, the International Space Station (ISS) maintains an orbit with an altitude of between 205 and 270 miles (330 and 435 kilometers). The telescope is 43.5 feet (13.2 meters) long and weighs 24,500 pounds (11,110 kilograms).
On April 22, 1970, the first Earth Day was celebrated. This date marks the birth of the modern environmental movement.
Combating climate change requires battling threats on multiple fronts, especially when it comes to flooding. Coastal residents have a unique waterborne threat that destroys livelihoods numerous times each year. We should consider ways to protect these regions from flooding and advocate for long-term solutions.
The first transcontinental video call was performed on April 20, 1964, through an AT&T Picturephone Mod I, a device consisting of a telephone handset and a small, matching TV.