Science & Discovery in the 20th century

1,642 sourced entries, 1900 CE to 1999 CE, oldest first. Also see Science & Discovery across every century or everything else in the 20th century.

1900January 5 – Dr. Henry A. Rowland of Johns Hopkins University discovers the cause of the Earth's magnetism.United States source
190013 January – Peter Waage, chemist and professor (born 1833)Norway source
1900March 14 – Botanist Hugo de Vries rediscovers Mendel's laws of heredity.source
1900March 23 – Karl Landsteiner first reports his discovery of an accurate means for classifying a system of blood type, which will universally be referred to as the ABO blood group system and for which he will be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1930.source
190028 May – A solar eclipse occurs with the path of totality crossing north-central Portugal.Portugal source
1900May — Phosphate discovered on Nauru – mining begins later in the year.New Zealand source
190017 October – Natural gas is found at Roma in QueenslandAustralia source
1900October 19 – Max Planck first states Planck's law of black-body radiation to a meeting of the German Physical Society in Berlin, marking the birth of modern quantum mechanics. He restates it on December 14.source
1900December 14 – History of quantum mechanics: Max Planck presents his groundbreaking paper on quantum theory to the German Physical Society in Berlin.source
190014 December – On a date now considered to be the birthday of quantum mechanics, Max Planck presents his paper Zur Theorie des Gesetzes der Energieverteilung in Normalspektrum (On the Theory of the Law of Energy Distribution in Normal Spectrum) at a meeting of the German Physical Society in Berlin.Germany source
1900December 17 – The Prix Guzman, first and only prize ever offered for communication with extraterrestrial life, is announced in Paris. A prize of 100,000 francs is provided, except for communication with Mars, which is considered too easy.source
1900December 27 – Emily Hobhouse arrives in Cape Town.South Africa source
1900The launching of the cruiser AuroraRussia source
1901March 1 – The 1901 Census of India is taken, the fourth, and first reliable, census of the British Raj.source
190121 March – SY Discovery (later named RRS Discovery) is formally launched in Dundee.Scotland source
190126 May – Russian cruiser Boyarin launched without presence of the Imperial Russian Army.Russia source
1901July 1 – The Bureau of Chemistry is established within the United States Department of Agriculture.United States source
1901August 5 – Peter O'Connor sets the first International Association of Athletics Federations recognised long jump world record, of 24 ft 11¾ ins (7.61m). The record will stand for 20 years.source
1901September – The first Filipino members of the second Philippine Commission are appointedPhilippines source
1901October 4 – The American yacht Columbia defeats the British Shamrock in the America's Cup yachting race in New York.source
190119 October - Aviator Alberto Santos-Dumont wins the Deutsch de la Meurthe prize with a flight that rounds the Eiffel Tower,Brazil source
1901Mahatma Gandhi embarks at Durban for Mauritius en route to Bombay.South Africa source
1901The okapi is observed for the first time by Europeans (previously known only to African natives).source
1901New Zealand inventor Ernest Godward invents the spiral hairpin.source
1901The first reliable census in India is taken.India source
1901A name ordinance is put in legal effect, regulating the uses of first names, surnames and family names.Sweden source
1902April 13 – A new land speed record of 74 mph is set in Nice, France, by Léon Serpollet driving a steam car.source
1902May 15 – It is claimed that in a field outside Grass Valley, California, Lyman Gilmore achieves flight in a powered airplane (a steam-powered glider). There is no surviving evidence to verify this claim.United States source
1902May 22 – The White Star Liner SS Ionic is launched by Harland and Wolff in Belfast.source
190222 May – The White Star Liner SS Ionic was launched by Harland and Wolff in Belfast.Ireland source
190222 May – the White Star Liner SS Ionic is launched by Harland and Wolff in Belfast.United Kingdom source
1902July 1 – Philippine Organic Act enacted into law.Philippines source
19021 August – New Idea magazine is first published.Australia source
1902September 1 – The first science fiction film, the silent A Trip to the Moon (Le Voyage dans La Lune), is premièred at the Théâtre Robert-Houdin in Paris, France, by actor/producer Georges Méliès, and proves an immediate success.source
19021 September – The first science fiction film, the trick film A Trip to the Moon (Le Voyage dans La Lune), is premièred at the Théâtre Robert-Houdin in Paris by actor/producer Georges Méliès, and proves an immediate success.France source
1902William Bayliss and Ernest Starling make the first discovery of a hormone, secretin.United Kingdom source
1902Oliver Heaviside proposes existence of the Kennelly–Heaviside layer.United Kingdom source
1903January 17 – 13 days after Topsy's death, the Edison Manufacturing Company released the short, black-and-white, silent documentary film Electrocuting an Elephant, showing the footage of Topsy's electrocution.United States source
190326 February – The ocean liner SS Columbus was launched by Harland and Wolff in Belfast.Ireland source
190320 March – Carl Anton Bjerknes, mathematician and physicist (born 1825)Norway source
1903June 27 – American socialite Aida de Acosta, 19, becomes the first woman to fly a powered aircraft solo when she pilots Santos-Dumont's motorized dirigible, "No. 9", from Paris to Château de Bagatelle in France.source
190329 June - A meteorite fall, classification H5, is observed in Uberaba, Minas Gerais.Brazil source
1903Heavyweight – H. Taylor (Greymouth)New Zealand source
1903Middleweight – J. Griffin (Invercargill)New Zealand source
1903Two 9th Class 2-8-2 Mikado steam locomotives. In 1912 they will be classified Class Experimental 4 on the SAR.South Africa source
1903Bertrand Russell - The Principles of MathematicsWales source
1904January 25 – Halford Mackinder presents a paper on "The Geographical Pivot of History" to the Royal Geographical Society of London in which he formulates the Heartland Theory, originating the study of geopolitics.source
19043 March – Kaiser Wilhelm II becomes the first person to make a political recording of a document, using Thomas Edison's cylinder.Germany source
1904Guangxi revolt of a Heaven and Earth Society (underway since 1902)China source
19042 July - The second Tour de France begins.France source
1904September 26 – New Zealand dolphin Pelorus Jack is individually protected by Order in Council under the Sea Fisheries Act.source
1904November 19 – SMS Deutschland (battleship)Germany source
1904December 3 – Charles Dillon Perrine discovers Jupiter's largest irregular satellite, later called Himalia, at California's Lick Observatory.source
19047 December – Royal Navy torpedo boat destroyer HMS Spiteful begins sea trials as the first capital warship to be powered solely using fuel oil.United Kingdom source
1904Hans Heysen wins the Wynne Prize with Mystic MornAustralia source
1904Heavyweight – J. Griffin (Greymouth)New Zealand source
1904Date unknown – First issue of Morgonbris.Sweden source
1905January 6 – The Lick Observatory announces the discovery on 3 December 1904 of a sixth moon of Jupiter, made by their astronomer Charles D. Perrine.source
190516 January – Neil Munro begins publishing his Vital Spark stories in the Glasgow Evening News.Scotland source
1905January 26 – The Cullinan Diamond, the largest diamond in the world at 3,106 carats, is discovered by Captain Frederick Wells at Cullinan.South Africa source
1905March 13 – Mata Hari introduces her exotic dance act in the Musée Guimet, Paris.source
1905March 18 – Albert Einstein submits his paper "On a heuristic viewpoint concerning the production and transformation of light", in which he explains the photoelectric effect using the notion of light quanta, for publication.source
190529 March – Evan Roberts embarks on his first and only mission outside Wales, spending a three-week period in Liverpool.Wales source
1905April 20 – The largest ocean liner in the world at this time, the German SS Amerika is launched.source
1905May 11 – Albert Einstein submits for publication his paper "Über die von der molekularkinetischen Theorie der Wärme geforderte Bewegung von in ruhenden Flüssigkeiten suspendierten Teilchen" ("On the Motion of Small Particles Suspended in a Stationary Liquid, as Required by the Molecular Kinetic Theory of Heat"), based on his doctoral research, delineating a stochastic model of Brownian motion.source
1905June 30 – Albert Einstein submits for publication his paper "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies", establishing his theory of special relativity.source
1905August 23 – A. Roy Knabenshue introduces the dirigible to the skies of New York City, piloting the lighter-than-air vehicle within view of hundreds of thousands of spectators.United States source
1905August 30 – A solar eclipse takes place, with greatest visibility in North Africa.source
1905September 27 – Albert Einstein submits for publication his paper "Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content?", in which he puts forward the idea of mass–energy equivalence by publishing the equation E = mc 2 (published November 21).source
19057 November – Blue Spec wins the Melbourne Cup.Australia source
1905Constantin Meunier, The DockerBelgium source
1905New Zealand Trotting Cup: BirchmarkNew Zealand source
1905The last Alexander Kielland essay, Omkring Napoleon (On Napoleon), was published.Norway source
1906February 7 – HMS Dreadnought is launched, sparking a naval race between Britain and Germany.source
19066 April – Alexander Kielland, novelist (born 1849)Norway source
1906June 7 – Cunard liner RMS Lusitania is launched in Glasgow, as the world's largest ship.source
19067 June – Cunard liner RMS Lusitania is launched at John Brown & Company's shipyard at Clydebank as the world's largest ship.Scotland source
1906June 8 – Theodore Roosevelt signs the Antiquities Act into law, authorizing the president to restrict the use of certain parcels of public land with historical or conservation value.United States source
190612 September – The inventor and aviation pioneer Jacob Christian Ellehammer makes a sustained but tethered flight in his self-built Ellehammer semi-biplane on the small Lindholm Island outside Copenhagen, three years after the world’s first historical flight by the Wright brothers in 1903. The flight distance is 42 meters at an altitude of over 50 centimeters.Denmark source
1906September 20 – The RMS Mauretania is launched on the River Tyne, becoming the world's largest ship.source
190623 October - Santos-Dumont 14-bis aircraft performs the first publicly witnessed European unaided take-off by a heavier-than-air aircraft, in Bagatelle.France source
190610 December – J. J. Thomson wins the Nobel Prize in Physics "in recognition of the great merits of his theoretical and experimental investigations on the conduction of electricity by gases."United Kingdom source
1906Heavyweight – E. Pearson (Wellington)New Zealand source
1906Ernest Rhys becomes editor of Everyman's Library.Wales source
190720 February - The Brazilian government approves the design for its new battleships.Brazil source
1907The Diamond Sūtra, a woodblock printed Buddhist scripture dated 868, is discovered by Aurel Stein in the Mogao Caves in China; it is "the earliest complete survival of a dated printed book".source
19076 April – Horatio Phillips achieves the first, limited, powered heavier-than-air flight in the UK when his multiplane makes a 500 ft hop.United Kingdom source
190715 May – Natal – Loskop to Winterton, 10 mi 60 ch.South Africa source
1907September 7 – British Cunard Line passenger liner RMS Lusitania sets out on her maiden voyage, from Liverpool (England) to New York City.source
1907November 16 – British Cunard Line passenger liner RMS Mauretania, the world's largest and fastest at this date, sets out on her maiden voyage from Liverpool to New York.source
1907November 16 – Passenger liner RMS Mauretania, the world's largest and fastest at this date, sets out on her maiden voyage from Liverpool (England) to New York.United States source
190725 December – Kristian Johansson, ski jumper and World ChampionNorway source
190728 December - The last officially confirmed huia sighting is made.New Zealand source
1907The Moine Thrust Belt in Scotland is identified, one of the first to be discovered anywhere.source
1907Eduard Buchner is awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.Germany source
1907The Moine Thrust Belt in the Scottish Highlands is identified, one of the first to be discoveredScotland source
1907Owen Morgan Edwards becomes Chief Inspector of Schools for Wales.Wales source
19081 January – Harry Bensley leaves for his would-be trip around the world pushing a pram and wearing an iron mask, beginning from Trafalgar Square in London.United Kingdom source
1908January 3 – A total solar eclipse is visible in the Pacific Ocean and is the 46th solar eclipse of Solar Saros 130.source
190826 January – the 1st Glasgow Scout Group is granted the oldest Scout Group registration known.Scotland source
19085 March – Edgeworth David leads the party attempting the ascent of Mount Erebus in the Antarctic.Wales source
1908March 26 – The US Thomas Flyer car sails for Alaska at the head of a motor race from New York to Paris.United States source
1908March 29 – French aviator Henri Farman makes the world's first flight with a passenger, Léon Delagrange.source
1908Clifford W. Beers's memoir of psychiatric abuse, A Mind That Found Itself, was published.source
1908June 28 – An annular solar eclipse is visible from Central America, North America, Atlantic Ocean and Africa and is the 33rd solar eclipse of Solar Saros 135.source
1908June 30 (June 17 OS) – The Tunguska event near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Siberia, Russian Empire, is believed to have been caused by the air burst of a large meteoroid or comet fragment, at an altitude of 5 – 10 km above the Earth's surface.source
1908July 8 – French aviator Léon Delagrange makes the world's first flight with a female passenger, his partner and fellow sculptor Thérèse Peltier.source
1908November 25 – The Christian Science Monitor newspaper is first published, in the United States.source
1908December 23 – A hybrid solar eclipse is visible from Atlantic Ocean and is the 23rd solar eclipse of Solar Saros 140.source
1908December 27 – Italian newsstands saw the first issue of Il Corriere dei Piccoli, the first mainstream publication primarily dedicated to comics. The first issue introduced readers to the adventures of Bilbolbul, a little black kid drawn by Attilio Mussino that is considered the first Italian comic character.Italy source
1908The Venus of Willendorf was discovered.Austria source
1908The Grain Growers Guide is first published.Canada source
1908Featherweight – W. Elliott (Timaru)New Zealand source
1909February 5 – Leo Baekeland announces the creation of bakelite hard thermosetting plastic.source
190919 April: Brazil's new battleship, São Paulo, is launched at Barrow-in-Furness, UK, by Regis de Oliveira, the wife of Brazil's minister to Great Britain.Brazil source
1909May 19 – Russian ballet is brought to the Western world when the Ballets Russes opens a tour produced by Sergei Diaghilev at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, with 55 dancers, including Vaslav Nijinsky.source
1909Mahatma Gandhi embarks in Cape Town for Southampton, England.South Africa source
1909August 8 – The Rosicrucian Fellowship is launched at Seattle, Washington.United States source
190929 October – The South Melbourne Swans defeat the Carlton Blues 4.14 (38) to 4.12 (36) in the 1909 VFL Grand Final.Australia source
1909December 10 – Guglielmo Marconi receives the Nobel Prize for Physics.Italy source
190910 December – Selma Lagerlöf becomes the first woman to be given the Nobel Prize in Literature.Sweden source
1909Summer – German Chemists Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch first demonstrate the Haber process, the catalytic formation of ammonia from hydrogen and atmospheric nitrogen under conditions of high temperature and pressure.Germany source
1909Welterweight – G. Watchorn (Palmerston North)New Zealand source
19105 January – Robert Svendsen set a Danish record when he reached a height of 84 during a flight at Kløvermarken in Amager.Denmark source
1910January 12 – Great January Comet of 1910 first observed (perihelion: January 17).source
1910March 14 – The Lakeview Gusher is vented into the atmosphere.United States source
191021 March – Harry Houdini achieves one of the first powered flights in Australia.Australia source
1910April 3 – The French rider Eugène Christophe wins the 4th Milan–San Remo bicycle race.Italy source
1910April 10 – Halley's Comet becomes visible with the naked eye (perihelion: April 20); Earth passes through its tail about May 19 (its next visit will be in 1986).source
191026 April – Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, writer and the 1903 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate (born 1832).Norway source
191022 June – The DELAG Zeppelin dirigible, Deutschland, makes the first commercial passenger flight from Friedrichshafen to Düsseldorf in Germany. The flight takes nine hours.Germany source
191011 September - English-born actor-aviator Robert Loraine makes an aeroplane flight from Wales across the Irish Sea, landing some 200 feet (60 metres) short of the Irish coast in Dublin Bay.Wales source
1910October 20 – The hull of White Star ocean liner RMS Olympic is launched, at the Harland and Wolff shipyards in Belfast.source
1910Infrared photographs are first published by Professor Robert Williams Wood, in the Royal Photographic Society's journal.source
1910Great Britain tour of New Zealand – beat New Zealand 52–20 in AucklandNew Zealand source
1911February 17 – The first "quasi-official" airmail flight occurs, when Fred J. Wiseman carries three letters between Petaluma and Santa Rosa, California.source
1911February 18 – The first official air mail flight, second overall, takes place in British India from Allahabad to Naini when Henri Pequet carries 6,500 letters a distance of 13 km.source
1911February 22 – One of Japan's most well-known authors, Natsume Sōseki, sends a letter to the Ministry of Education, refusing the title of professor of literature. He explains that he just wants to go on living his life as "Natsume so-and-so."Japan source
1911March – The first installment of a serialized version of Frederick Winslow Taylor's monograph, The Principles of Scientific Management, appears in The American Magazine. The complete series runs in the March, April, and May issues, giving a boost to the efficiency movement.United States source
1911April 8 – Heike Kamerlingh Onnes discovers superconductivity; he presents his findings on April 28.source
1911May 31 – The hull of the RMS Titanic is launched in Belfast, on the same day RMS Olympic starts her sea trials.source
191131 May – launching of the ocean liner RMS Titanic in Belfast. Her sister RMS Olympic sails for Liverpool the same day to take up transatlantic service.United Kingdom source
1911June 14 – RMS Olympic departs Southampton, England, for her maiden voyage. On June 15, she arrives in Queenstown, Ireland, to discharge and take up passengers.source
1911June 21 – RMS Olympic arrives in New York at the end of her maiden voyage.source
1911June 28 – The Nakhla meteorite falls in the Abu Hummus region of Egypt, providing evidence of water on Mars.source
1911October 4 – John Young Monument unveiledCanada source
191116 December - The Imperial Copyright Act (coming into effect in 1912) entitles the National Library of Wales to be given by legal deposit a copy of all British publications in specified categories, based on a memorandum drafted by Daniel Lleufer Thomas.Wales source
1911New Zealand-born British physicist Ernest Rutherford deduces the existence of a compact atomic nucleus from experiments involving Rutherford scattering, proposing the Rutherford model of the atom.source
1911Geneva Convention Act (British statute)India source
1911New Zealand national rugby league teamNew Zealand source
1911Gleb Kotelnikov invented the knapsack parachuteRussia source
1912January 6 – German geophysicist Alfred Wegener first presents his theory of continental drift.source
191224 February – The TSS Earnslaw launched at Kingston on Lake Wakatipu.New Zealand source
19127 March – Roald Amundsen announced his success in reaching the South PoleNorway source
1912April 1 – A partial lunar eclipse takes place, the first of two lunar eclipses this year. It is the 61st lunar eclipse of the 111th Saros cycle, which started with a penumbral lunar eclipse on June 10, 830 AD and will conclude with another penumbral lunar eclipse on July 19, 2092.source
1912April 10 – White Star liner RMS Titanic departs from Southampton, England, with more than 2,200 passengers and crew on her maiden voyage, bound for New York.source
1912April 14/15 – The RMS Titanic strikes an iceberg off the Grand Banks of NewfoundlandCanada source
191215 April – Transvaal – Buhrmannsdrif to Ottoshoop, 11 mi 70 ch.South Africa source
1912April 17 – A hybrid solar eclipse is the 30th solar eclipse of Solar Saros 137.source
1912April 18 – Cunard Line vessel RMS Carpathia arrives in New York with the 705 RMS Titanic survivors.source
1912May 23 – The Hamburg America Line's SS Imperator is launched in Hamburg and is the world's largest ship.source
1912June 5 – Tsuruko Haraguchi is awarded a PhD in psychology from Columbia University, becoming the first Japanese woman to earn a PhD in any field.Japan source
191210 October – The Maternity Allowance Act 1912 is passed, granting a "Baby Bonus" of five pounds to the mother of every child born in Australia (indigenous mothers and other non-citizens are excluded).Australia source
1912October 27 – The Italian rider Carlo Oriani wins the 8th Giro di Lombardia bicycle race.Italy source
1912Edgar Rice Burroughs' character Tarzan first appears in Tarzan of the Apes, in American pulp magazine The All-Story.source
1912Sax Rohmer's character Fu Manchu first appears in the first story of The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu in English pulp magazine The Story-Teller.source
1912November 11 – William Lawrence Bragg presents his derivation of Bragg's law for the angles for coherent and incoherent scattering from a crystal lattice, creating the field of x-ray crystallography, and making possible the eventual imaging of the double helix of DNA.source
1912December 18 – Piltdown Man, thought to be the fossilized skull of a hitherto unknown form of early human, is presented to the Geological Society of London (it is revealed to be a hoax in 1953).source
1912Casimir Funk identifies vitamins.source
1912The Scoville Unit (used to measure the heat of peppers) is devised and tested by Wilbur Scoville.source
1912Alfred Wegener proposes a fully formulated theory of continental drift and gave the supercontinent Pangaea its name.Germany source
191328 February – Dikken Zwilgmeyer, writer (born 1853).Norway source
191311 July - Brazil's foreign minister, Lauro Müller, entertains US dignitaries on board the battleship Minas Geraes during his visit to New York.Brazil source
1913August 2 – The first known ascent of Mount Olympus in Greece is made by Swiss mountaineers Daniel Baud-Bovy and Frédéric Boissonnas guided by Christos Kakkalos.source
191327 November – South American dreadnought race: The Chilean battleship Almirante Latorre is launched.Chile source
1913French physicist Georges Sagnac shows that light propagates at a speed independent of the speed of its source.source
1913Date unknown - Chemical element Protactinium is first identified by Oswald Helmuth Göhring and Kasimir Fajans.Germany source
1913Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941), Bengali poet, got the Nobel Prize in Literature for his book of lyrics called Gitanjali translated into English by himself.India source
1913Eugene de Blaas - God's CreaturesItaly source
1913Arthur Schaef makes short powered hops in his second, unnamed, aircraft, at Lyall Bay, Wellington.New Zealand source
1913The United States Mint issues the first buffalo nickel.United States source
191423 February - Light cruiser HMS Cordelia is launched at Pembroke Dock.Wales source
1914February 26 – The ocean liner that will become HMHS Britannic, sister to the RMS Titanic, is launched at the Harland and Wolff shipyards in Belfast.source
19143 April – Cape – Gamtoos to Patensie (Narrow gauge), 18 mi 79 ch.South Africa source
191429 June - world's first high-speed long-range flight of a heavy aircraft Ilya Muromets started, on the route Saint Petersburg - Orsha - Kopys - Kiev - Saint PetersburgRussia source
191416 July – Maurice Guillaux leaves Melbourne to fly to Sydney in a Blériot monoplane in the first delivery of airmail. He arrived in Sydney on 18 July after nine and a half hours of flying time.Australia source
19144 September – William Henry Strahan published "The Bugle Call"Australia source
19141 November – The first contingent of the First Australian Imperial Force leaves for Egypt.Australia source
191414 November - Light cruiser HMS Carysfort is launched at Pembroke Dock.Wales source
1914Watchmaker Glycine Watch SA is founded by Eugène Meylan in Switzerland.source
1914Edmonton adopts a new numbered street and avenue patternCanada source
1915January 5 – Joseph E. Carberry sets an altitude record of 11,690 ft, carrying Capt. Benjamin Delahauf Foulois as a passenger, in a fixed-wing aircraft.source
1915January – British physicist Sir Joseph Larmor publishes his observations on "The Influence of Local Atmospheric Cooling on Astronomical Refraction".source
1915March 19 – Pluto is photographed for the first time, but is not recognised for what it is.source
191512 November – William Henry Bragg and his son William Lawrence Bragg win the Nobel Prize in Physics "For their services in the analysis of crystal structure by means of X-rays."United Kingdom source
1915November 25 – Albert Einstein presents part of his theory of general relativity to the Prussian Academy of Sciences.source
1915November – The New Zealand Flying School moves to Kohimarama.New Zealand source
19154 December - First submarine to be launched at Pembroke Dock, HMS J3.Wales source
191510 December – Father and son scientists William Henry Bragg and William Lawrence Bragg win the Nobel Prize in Physics.Australia source
1915German palaeontologist Ernst Stromer publishes an article assigning the specimen to a new genus and species Spinosaurus aegyptiacus.Germany source
1915Knud Knudsen, photographer (born 1832)Norway source
1915William Evans (Wil Ifan) - Dros y NythWales source
1916January 22 – Japan launches its first domestically manufactured blimp. The blimp left Tokorozawa at 1:30 p.m. and, after landing and refueling at Toyohashi, landed in Osaka at 5:10 p.m. the next day.Japan source
19162 February – Submarine HMS J4 is launched at Pembroke Dock.Wales source
1916The toggle light switch is invented, by William J. Newton and Morris Goldberg.source
191615 October – The 16th New Zealand national census is taken.New Zealand source
1916October – The Canterbury (NZ) Aviation Company purchases land at Sockburn near Christchurch. The first planes will not arrive until the following year.New Zealand source
1916Ferdinand de Saussure's Cours de linguistique générale is collected posthumously and published.source
1916Louis Enricht claims he has a substitute for gasoline.source
1916Sasanof wins the Melbourne Cup.Australia source
1916Lucy Maud Montgomery – The Watchman & Other PoemsCanada source
1916The first Doukhobors arrive in AlbertaCanada source
1916Daniel Corkery's short stories, A Munster Twilight, were published.Ireland source
19175 March – Natal – Izingolweni to Harding (narrow gauge), 39 mi 56 ch.South Africa source
1917May 13–October 13 (at monthly intervals) – 10-year-old Lúcia Santos and her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto report experiencing a series of Marian apparitions near Fátima, Portugal, which become known as Our Lady of Fátima.source
1917Genealogical Society of FinlandFinland source
1917New Zealand Trotting Cup – Adelaide DirectNew Zealand source
1917Sergei Rachmaninoff - Études-Tableaux, Op. 39Russia source
1917Announced 12 November 1918; presented 1 June 1920 – Charles Glover Barkla wins the 1917 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his discovery of the characteristic Röntgen radiation of the elements."United Kingdom source
1917Nuclear fission: Ernest Rutherford (at the Victoria University of Manchester) achieves nuclear transmutation, the first observation of a nuclear reaction, in which he also discovers and names the proton.United Kingdom source
1917Mary Edith Nepean – Gwyneth of the Welsh HillsWales source
1917Papur Pawb ceases publication.Wales source
1918January 12 – Galileo Circle is bannedHungary source
191811 February – American Dreadnought battleship USS Texas joins the British Grand Fleet in Scapa Flow.Scotland source
191811 March - Communist government moves from Petrograd to MoscowRussia source
1918June 8 – V603 Aquilae, the brightest nova observed since Kepler's of 1604, is discovered.source
1918June 8 – The total solar eclipse of June 8, 1918 crosses the United States from Washington State to Florida.United States source
1918June - The Brazilian battleship São Paulo is sent to the USA for a full refit.Brazil source
1918July 14 – The film The Glorious Adventure is released in the United States, featuring Mammy Lou, who becomes one of the oldest people ever to star in a film, at a claimed age of 114.source
191812 November – Night Watch wins the Melbourne Cup.Australia source
1918Citizen Watch (シチズン時計), as predecessor name was Shōkōsha Watch Institute Research.Japan source
1918Auckland Trotting Cup – Harold JuniorNew Zealand source
1919May 1 – Oszkár Jászi emigrates to ViennaHungary source
1919May 29 – Eddington experiment: Einstein's theory of general relativity is tested by Arthur Eddington's observation of the "bending of light" during a total solar eclipse in Príncipe, and by Andrew Crommelin in Sobral, Ceará, Brazil (confirmed November 19).source
191929 May – Observations made by Arthur Eddington during a solar eclipse test part of Einstein's general theory of relativity (confirmed 6 November).United Kingdom source
191931 May – George Bolt flies from Auckland to Russell in a Boeing and Westervelt floatplane. The distance of 233 km is a record for a flight in New Zealand.New Zealand source
1919July 2–6 – British airship R34 makes the first transatlantic flight by dirigible, and the first westbound flight, from RAF East Fortune, Scotland, to Mineola, New York.source
1919July 6 – The British dirigible airship R34 lands at Mineola, New York, completing the first transatlantic flight by airship.United States source
1919July 28 – The International Astronomical Union is founded in Paris, France.source
191917 November – American expatriate Sylvia Beach opens the Shakespeare and Company bookstore in Paris.France source
191910 December – Keith and Ross Smith, piloting a Vickers Vimy, reach Darwin at the end of the first England to Australia flight.Australia source
1919Romeo Gómez Aguilar (97), músician and academic (died 2019).Mexico source
1919John Cowper Powys – After My Fashion (unpublished until 1980)Wales source
1920January 13 – The New York Times ridicules American rocket scientist Robert H. Goddard, which it will rescind following the launch of Apollo 11 in 1969.source
1920January 13 – The New York Times ridicules the American rocket scientist Robert H. Goddard. (Decades later, on July 17, 1969, as the Apollo 11 crew head to the Moon, the newspaper will retract this editorial.)United States source
192013 March – Scotland 3–0 Ireland (in Glasgow).Ireland source
1920March 18 – Greece begins using the Gregorian calendar.source
1920March 26 – American fiction writer F. Scott Fitzgerald makes his name with publication of This Side of Paradise.source
1920April 26 – The Winnipeg Falcons representing Canada beat Sweden 12–1 to win the gold medal for ice hockey at the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp.Canada source
1920May 1 – 1920 Major League Baseball season: The Brooklyn Robins and the Boston Braves play to a 1–1 tie in 26 innings, recording the longest single game in MLB history.United States source
1920May 7 – Mexican Revolution: Venustiano Carranza leaves Mexico City in a large train.source
192021 July - Interallied Mission to Poland is launched.France source
1920New Zealand Trotting Cup – Reta PeterNew Zealand source
1920Steinar Schjøtt, philologist and lexicographer (born 1844)Norway source
1920Border Terrier first recognised as a dog breed by The Kennel Club.Scotland source
1921January 25 – Italian battleship Leonardo da Vinci is righted in Taranto Harbour.source
1921February – Antoun Saadeh arrives in Brazil with his father, a prominent Arabic-language journalist.Brazil source
19216 April - Act III of 1921 comes into effectHungary source
1921April – Third Solvay Conference held in BrusselsBelgium source
1921May 5 – Chanel No. 5 perfume launched by Coco Chanel.source
1921July 27 – Researchers at the University of Toronto, led by biochemist Frederick Banting, announce the discovery of the hormone insulin.source
1921July 27 – Frederick Banting and Charles Best discover insulinCanada source
1921Weighing the fleece – George W LambertAustralia source
1921Establishment of Creation QuarterlyChina source
1921New Zealand Derby – Winning HitNew Zealand source
1921Harald Strøm, speedskater and football player, becomes the third to receive the Egebergs Ærespris, an award presented to Norwegian athletes who excel at two (or more) different sports.Norway source
1922February 14 – Baragoola, the last of the Binngarra class Manly ferries, is launched at Balmain, New South Wales.source
1922February – The Ring boxing magazine is first published.United States source
1922March 4 – The silent horror film Nosferatu is premièred at the Berlin Zoological Garden in Germany.source
1922April 12 – The United Kingdom's Prince of Wales arrives in Yokohama aboard HMS Renown and rides by train to Tokyo, starting a one-month visit to Japan.source
192224 June – Athletic Park, Wellington: drawn 1–1New Zealand source
1922September 17 – Dutch cyclist Piet Moeskops becomes world champion sprinter.source
192221 September – A total solar eclipse occurs over Australia, allowing scientists to test Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity.Australia source
192210 October - Contralto Leila Megane makes the first recording of Sir Edward Elgar's Sea Pictures, with Elgar himself conducting.Wales source
19226 December – First domestically designed 2d postage stamp issued depicting a map of Ireland and inscribed Éire.Ireland source
192210 December – Francis William Aston wins the Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his discovery, by means of his mass spectrograph, of isotopes, in a large number of non-radioactive elements, and for his enunciation of the whole-number rule".United Kingdom source
1922Do Rio a São Paulo Para Casar, directed by José Medina and starring Waldemar MorenoBrazil source
1922New Zealand Trotting Cup – AgathosNew Zealand source
1923February 5 – Australian cricketer Bill Ponsford makes 429 runs to break the world record for the highest first-class cricket score for the first time in his third match at this level, at Melbourne Cricket Ground, giving the Victoria cricket team an innings total of 1,059.source
192316 February – Discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun: English archaeologist Howard Carter formally unseals the burial chamber within the tomb of Tutankhamun, a pharaoh of the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt.United Kingdom source
1923March 1 – The USS Connecticut is decommissioned.United States source
1923March 23 – The governor of Oklahoma signs House Bill 197 with the Montgomery amendment outlawing the theory of evolution in public school textbooks purchased by the state, the first anti-Darwinian legislation passed in the U.S.United States source
1923April 12 – The Kandersteg International Scout Centre comes into existence in Switzerland.source
192312 April – Transvaal – Dunswart to Apex deviation, 4 mi 16 ch.South Africa source
1923October 25 – Frederick Banting and Charles Best win the Nobel Prize for Medicine for the discovery of insulinCanada source
192314 November – The poet William Butler Yeats became the first Irish Nobel prize laureate when he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.Ireland source
1923The Royal Navy battlecruiser HMS New Zealand, funded by the New Zealand government as a gift to Britain before World War I, is broken up for scrapNew Zealand source
1923New Zealand Trotting Cup – Great HopeNew Zealand source
192414 January – Arne Garborg, writer (born 1851)Norway source
1924The Taung Child is discovered.South Africa source
1924August 9–17 – the 2nd World Scout Jamboree is held in Ermelunden, Denmark.Denmark source
1924August – Mars is closer to Earth than it has been for many years and mysterious wireless signals are picked up at a Vancouver wireless station. It is thought by some to be evidence of Martian contact.Canada source
1924October 12–15 – Zeppelin LZ-126 makes a transatlantic delivery flight from Friedrichshafen, Germany, to Lakehurst, New Jersey.source
1924October – The skull of the Taung Child is discovered in South Africa.source
1924December 30 – American astronomer Edwin Hubble announces that Andromeda, previously believed to be a nebula, is actually another galaxy, and that the Milky Way is only one of many such galaxies in the universe.source
1924The Melbourne Cup was won by six-year-old stallion Backwood (ridden by Bunty Brown, trained by Richard 'Dick' Bradfield and owned by W Clark, Allen Hughes & Baillieu). He was the fourth and final winner of the race trained by Bradfield. The race was won in a time of 3:26.5 with a field of eighteen. Stand By (Bobby Lewis/James Scobie) and Spearfelt (E O'Sullivan/V O'Neill) placed second and third.Australia source
1924Oswald de Andrade – Memórias Sentimentais de João MiramarBrazil source
1924The Last Laugh, starring Emil Jannings, is released by director F.W. Murnau.Germany source
1924Ike Robin is recognised as New Zealand's first wrestling championNew Zealand source
19251 January – National scheme for vehicle registration plates comes into forceNew Zealand source
1925March 21 – Tennessee Governor Austin Peay signs the Butler Act, prohibiting the teaching of evolution in the state's public schools.United States source
19259 April – Administration of Estates Act abolishes the legal rule of primogeniture in England and Wales and the remnants of gavelkind in Kent; Law of Property Act modernises the law relating to real estate (both Acts come into effect 1 January 1926).United Kingdom source
1925July 29 – Werner Heisenberg, Max Born and Pascual Jordan published their Umdeutung paper, reporting a breakthrough in quantum physics, in Zeitschrift für Physik in Germany.source
1925Quando Elas Querem, directed by Eugenio Centenaro Kerrigan and starring Luiz de BarrosBrazil source
1925George Bernard Shaw is awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.Ireland source
1925Allen Adair published by Jane ManderNew Zealand source
19261 January – Law of Property Act 1925 and Administration of Estates Act 1925 come into effect modernising the laws on real estate and intestacy.United Kingdom source
1926March 16 – Robert H. Goddard launches the first liquid-fuel rocket, at Auburn, Massachusetts.source
1926March 16 – Robert Goddard launches the first liquid-fuel rocket, at Auburn, Massachusetts.United States source
192622 April – Modern Obligations codeTurkey source
192628 April – J. G. Parry-Thomas breaks the world land speed record on Pendine Sands, in his new car, "Babs".Wales source
1926May 11–14 – Roald Amundsen makes the first airship flight over the North Pole. The Norge leaves Spitsbergen and arrives in Teller, Alaska three days later.Norway source
1926May 12 – Roald Amundsen and his crew fly over the North Pole, in the airship Norge.source
192624 June – the liner Padua is launched. Other ships launched this year (all with date of launch unknown) include SS Amrum, SS Ilse L M Russ and SS Siegmund.Germany source
1926Helen Wayth wins the first Miss Australia QuestAustralia source
1926New Zealand Trotting Cup – Ahuriri (2nd win)New Zealand source
1927January 10 – Fritz Lang's futuristic film Metropolis is released in Germany.source
192710 January - The film Metropolis is released.Germany source
1927January 23 – Okuro Oikawa discovers a new asteroid 1266 Tone at the Tokyo Observatory.Japan source
1927February – Werner Heisenberg formulates his famous uncertainty principle, while employed as a lecturer at Niels Bohr's Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of Copenhagen.source
1927March 29 – Henry Segrave breaks the land speed record, driving the Sunbeam 1000 hp at Daytona Beach, Florida.source
19279 April – Georg Ossian Sars, marine biologist (born 1837)Norway source
1927May 20–21 – Charles Lindbergh makes the first solo, nonstop transatlantic airplane flight, from New York City to Paris, France, in his single-engined aircraft, the Spirit of St. Louis.source
1927June 4–6 – Clarence Chamberlin and Charles Albert Levine take off from Roosevelt Field, New York, and fly to Eisleben, Germany, in the Wright-Bellanca WB-2 Columbia aircraft Miss Columbia, two weeks after Charles Lindbergh's historic solo flight.source
192711 June - The Brazilian submarine Humaytá is launched at the Odero-Terni-Orlando shipyard at La Spezia, Italy.Brazil source
1927June 29 – Solar eclipse of June 29, 1927: A total eclipse of the sun takes place over Wales, northern England, southern Scotland, Norway, northern Sweden, northmost Finland, and the northmost extremes of Russia.source
1927July 1 – The Food, Drug, and Insecticide Administration (FDIA) is established as a United States federal agency.source
1927October – Niels Bohr presents his theoretical principle of complementarity at the Fifth Solvay Conference on Physics.source
1927October – Fifth International Solvay ConferenceBelgium source
1927December 17 – Australian cricketer Bill Ponsford makes 437 runs to break his own world record for the highest first-class cricket score at Melbourne Cricket Ground.source
1927Professor Thomas Parnell begins the pitch drop experiment at the University of Queensland. It will go on to become the world's longest continuously running scientific experiment.Australia source
1927Wallace Rupert Turnbull tested the second design of his variable-pitch propeller, a key development in aviationCanada source
1927New Zealand Trotting Cup – KoharaNew Zealand source
1928January – British bacteriologist Frederick Griffith reports the results of Griffith's experiment, indirectly demonstrating that DNA is the genetic material.source
1928March 21 – Charles Lindbergh is presented with the Medal of Honor for his first transatlantic flight.source
1928March 21 – Charles Lindbergh is presented the Medal of Honor for his first trans-Atlantic flight.United States source
192827 April – Amund B. Larsen, linguist (born 1849)Norway source
192813 May – The 1928 Liège–Bastogne–Liège cycle race is won by Belgian rider Ernest Mottard.Belgium source
1928May 15 – The animated short Plane Crazy is released by Disney Studios in Los Angeles, featuring the first appearances of Mickey and Minnie Mouse (in a non-distributed film).source
1928June 17 – 18 – Aviator Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to make a successful transatlantic flight, as a passenger in a Fokker F.VIIb/3m piloted by Wilmer Stultz, from Newfoundland to Wales.source
192818 June – Amelia Earhart lands near Burry Port, becoming the first woman passenger on a Transatlantic flight.Wales source
1928The Cecchetti Society of Southern Africa is formed with the aim of promoting the Methods of Enrico Cecchetti and introducing the Principles of the Cecchetti method to young ballet dancers in Southern Africa.South Africa source
19281 December: Latin alphabet law takes effect.Turkey source
192820 December – Hubert Wilkins makes the first flight over Antarctica in his Lockheed Vega San FranciscoAustralia source
1928New Zealand Trotting Cup – Peter BingenNew Zealand source
19297 February – The Monetary Act lays down the gold standard for the Romanian leu.Romania source
19295 April – Ivar Giaever, physicist, shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1973Norway source
1929April – The first of the Saccopastore skulls is discovered.Italy source
1929July 27 – The Red Crescent is adopted as an additional emblem of the League of Red Cross Societies.source
1929October 18 – On appeal from the Supreme Court of Canada on behalf of "The Famous Five" Canadian women in the landmark case of Edwards v. Canada (Attorney General), the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in the United Kingdom announces that women are "persons" under the British North America Acts, and thus eligible for appointment to the Senate of Canada.source
1929November 1 – An annular solar eclipse is seen over the Atlantic Ocean and Africa.source
1929November 29 – Bernt Balchen, U.S. Admiral Richard E. Byrd, Captain Ashley McKinley and Harold June become the first to fly over the South Pole.source
1929November 29 – Bernt Balchen, U.S. Admiral Richard Byrd, Captain Ashley McKinley, and Harold June, become the first to fly over the South Pole.United States source
1929Graça Aranha - A Viagem MaravilhosaBrazil source
1929Frozen fish fillets are introduced by the Biological Board of Canada developed by Archibald Huntsman.Canada source
192926–31 August – The 18th Scandinavian Scientist Conference is held in Copenhagen.Denmark source
1929Date unknown: Steroid hormone Estrogen was isolated and purified estrone, the first estrogen to be discovered by Adolf ButenandtGermany source
1930January 6 – An early literary character licensing agreement is signed by A. A. Milne, granting Stephen Slesinger U.S. and Canadian merchandising rights to the Winnie-the-Pooh works.Canada source
1930January 15 – The Moon moves into its nearest point to Earth, called perigee, at the same time as its fullest phase of the Lunar Cycle. This is the closest moon distance at 356,397 km in recent history, and the next one will be on January 1, 2257, at 356,371 km.source
1930February 18 – While studying photographs taken in January, Clyde Tombaugh confirms the existence of Pluto, a celestial body considered a planet until redefined as a dwarf planet in 2006.source
193028 February - Sir C V Raman Received Nobel Prize in Physics.India source
193014 April – Cape – Fort Knokke to Woltemade no. 1, 4 mi 5 ch.South Africa source
1930April 17 – Neoprene is invented by DuPont.source
1930May 24 – Amy Johnson lands in Darwin, Australia, becoming the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia (she left on May 5 for the 11,000 mile flight).source
1930May 30 – Film director Sergei Eisenstein arrives in Hollywood to work for Paramount Pictures; they part ways by October.United States source
193021 June – Trygve Reenskaug, computer scientistNorway source
1930July 11 – Australian cricketer Don Bradman scores a world record 309 runs in one day, on his way to the highest individual Test innings of 334, during a Test match against England.source
193026 July – The cargo schooner Nobiskrug is launched from Rendsburg harbour.Germany source
1930July 29 – British airship R100 sets out for a successful 78-hour passage to Canada.source
1930December 24 – In London, inventor Harry Grindell Matthews demonstrates his device to project pictures on clouds.source
1930Bernhard Schmidt invents the Schmidt camera.source
1930NHK Science & Technology Research Laboratories was foundedJapan source
193024,25,27 January Basin Reserve, Wellington. New Zealand (440 and 164/4dec.) drew with England (320 and 107/4).New Zealand source
1931January 2 – South Dakota native Ernest Lawrence invents the cyclotron, used to accelerate particles to study nuclear physics.source
19313 January – Jan Økland, limnologist.Norway source
1931January 4 – German pilot Elly Beinhorn begins her flight to Africa.source
1931January 4 – German pilot Elly Beinhorn begins her flight to Portuguese Guinea (now Guinea-Bissau) in Africa.Germany source
193115 January – Eleven Italian seaplanes led by Italo Balbo land at Botafogo Bay after a 6,000 mile flight from Italy that began on 17 December. The pilots are greeted by President Getúlio Vargas.Brazil source
193126 March – International measurements were legalizedTurkey source
19319 May - Richmond set a record VFL score of 30.19 (199) against North Melbourne. This record stands until 1969. Doug Strang, with fourteen goals, and Jack Titus, with eight, combine for 22 goals - a total equalled by Templeton and Dunstan in 1978 but never beatenAustralia source
1931October – The Caltech Department of Physics Faculty and graduate students meet with Albert Einstein as a guest.United States source
193118 November – The 1931 census of Palestine is carried out by the Mandate authorities under the direction of Major E. Mills.Mandatory Palestine source
1931November 26 – Heavy hydrogen, later named deuterium, is discovered by American chemist Harold Urey.source
1931New Zealand Trotting Cup – Harold LoganNew Zealand source
1932March 1 – Japan installs Puyi as puppet emperor of Manchukuo.source
1932March 20 – The Graf Zeppelin airship begins a regular route between Germany and South America.source
1932April 14 – John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton, at the Cavendish Laboratory in the University of Cambridge (England), focus a proton beam on lithium and split its nucleus ("splitting the atom").source
1932May 10 – James Chadwick, working at the Cavendish Laboratory in the University of Cambridge, reports the existence of the neutron.source
1932May 25 – Goofy makes his appearance in the Disney animated short Mickey's Revue.source
1932August 1 – The second International Polar Year, an international scientific collaboration, begins.source
1932August 2 – The first positron is discovered by Carl D. Anderson.source
193217 August – Botanist John McConnell Black is awarded the Mueller Medal by the Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science.Australia source
1932August 18 – Auguste Piccard reaches an altitude of 16,197 m with a hot air balloon.source
193228 August – Yakir Aharonov, Israeli physicist.Mandatory Palestine source
1932August 31 – A total solar eclipse is visible from northern Canada through northeastern Vermont, New Hampshire, southwestern Maine and the Capes of Massachusetts.source
1932November 17: new statute of the National Fascisct party.Italy source
1932November 30 – The Polish Cipher Bureau breaks the German Enigma cipher.source
1932British geneticist J. B. S. Haldane publishes The Causes of Evolution, unifying the findings of Mendelian genetics with those of evolutionary science.source
1932Zero-length springs are invented, revolutionizing seismometers and gravimeters.source
1932René Magritte, The Universe UnmaskedBelgium source
1932Estonian Encyclopedia was started to be published (until 1937).Estonia source
1932Gurjar Veer silent film is released.India source
1932I Was Born, But... - directed by Yasujirō OzuJapan source
1932New Zealand Cup – Fast PassageNew Zealand source
19332 May – First modern "sighting" of the Loch Ness Monster.Scotland source
1933May 5 – The detection by Karl Jansky of radio waves from the center of the Milky Way Galaxy is reported in The New York Times. The discovery leads to the birth of radio astronomy.source
193310 June – The Australian Women's Weekly is first published.Australia source
193320 July – New airline Aerolloyd Iguassu goes into operation, with flights between Curitiba and São Paulo.Brazil source
1933July 22 – Wiley Post becomes the first person to fly solo around the world, landing at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, New York, after traveling eastbound 15,596 mi in 7 days 18 hours 45 minutes.source
1933October 17 – Scientist Albert Einstein arrives from Europe in the United States, where he settles permanently as a refugee from Nazi Germany and takes up a position at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey.source
1933October 17 – Albert Einstein arrives in the United States, where he settles permanently as a refugee from Nazi Germany and takes up a position at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey.United States source
1933Pakistan Declaration publishedIndia source
1933El vuelo de la muerte, starring Sara GarcíaMexico source
1933New Zealand Trotting Cup – Red ShadowNew Zealand source
1933Peter Karl Holmesland, jurist and politician (born 1866)Norway source
1934January 26 – The Apollo Theater opens in Harlem, New York City.United States source
19341 September – Body of the "Pyjama Girl" found in Albury, New South Wales.Australia source
1934October 20–November 5 – The MacRobertson Air Race is flown from RAF Mildenhall in England to Melbourne, Australia, to celebrate the centenary of the state of Victoria. The overall winner is the British de Havilland DH.88 Comet G-ACSS Grosvenor House, flown by C. W. A. Scott and Tom Campbell Black.source
193420 November – Willem de Sitter, mathematician, physicist and astronomer (born 1872)Netherlands source
193426 November – Meteorite impact near Roisin.Belgium source
1934The sonoluminescence effect is discovered, at the University of Cologne.source
1934Monteiro Lobato - Emília no País da Gramática and Aritmética da EmíliaBrazil source
1934New Zealand Trotting Cup – IndianapolisNew Zealand source
193428 & 31 July – Gerhard Zucker launches rocket mail experimentally between the Outer Hebridean islands of Scarp and Harris; in both attempts the powder rockets explode.Scotland source
1934Harry Parr Davies becomes accompanist to Gracie Fields.Wales source
1935January 12 – Amelia Earhart becomes the first person to successfully complete a solo flight from Hawaii to California, a distance of 2,408 mi.source
1935February 26 – Robert Watson-Watt first demonstrates the use of radar to detect aircraft, at Daventry in the UK.source
1935May 7 – David Dunlap Observatory opensCanada source
193511 May – Rugby league: St. George beats Canterbury 91 points to 6 for the highest score and biggest win in NRL history.Australia source
193526 June – The balloon USSR-1 ascends to an altitude of 16,000 meters and is forced into descent by a release of hydrogen.Soviet Union source
1935November 22 – The China Clipper takes off from Alameda, California to deliver the first airmail cargo across the Pacific Ocean; the aircraft reaches its destination, Manila, and delivers over 110,000 pieces of mail.United States source
193510 December – James Chadwick wins the Nobel Prize in Physics "for the discovery of the neutron."United Kingdom source
1935Willy Hansen (DEN) and Viktor Rausch (GER) win the second Six Days of Copenhagen six-day track cycling race.Denmark source
1935New Zealand Trotting Cup – Indianapolis (2nd win)New Zealand source
1935Bertrand Russell – Religion and ScienceWales source
1936February 4 – Radium E (bismuth-210) becomes the first radioactive element to be made synthetically.source
1936March 12 – Ukichiro Nakaya creates the first artificial snow crystal.Japan source
19361 May – Natal – Point to Congella, 1 mi 52 ch.South Africa source
1936May 28 - Alan Turing submits "On Computable Numbers", proving the undecidability of the Halting problem and the decision problem for logic. Computer scientist Avi Wigderson called this paper "easily the most influential math paper in history".source
1936June 19 – The total solar eclipse of June 19, 1936 is visible in Greece, Turkey, Russia and Japan. It is part of Solar Saros 126; Gamma is a value of 0.53889.source
1936July 4 – First publication recognizing stress as a biological condition.source
193630 August — Ernest Nash flees Germany for Rome.Germany source
1936October 19 – H. R. Ekins, reporter for the New York World-Telegram, wins a race to travel around the world on commercial airline flights, beating Dorothy Kilgallen of the New York Journal and Leo Kieran of The New York Times. The flight takes 18½ days.source
1936October 19 – H.R. Ekins, reporter for the New York World-Telegram, wins a race to travel around the world on commercial airline flights, beating Dorothy Kilgallen of the New York Journal and Leo Kieran of The New York Times. The flight takes 18 ½ days.United States source
193630 November – Johan Turi, first Sami author to publish work (born 1854)Norway source
1936Nestlé introduce the white chocolate Milkybar (called Galak in Continental Europe and elsewhere).source
1936"Dawn Song" for piano and cello or viol published by Australian Composer Louis Isodore LavaterAustralia source
1936Edwin Muir publishes Scott and Scotland.Scotland source
1936Ambrose Bebb - Crwydro'r CyfandirWales source
19371 February – The 1937 New Year Honours are announced.New Zealand source
1937February 1 – The Aliens Act No. 1 is promulgated, restricting and regulating the entry of certain aliens into the Union of South Africa and regulating the right of any person to assume a surname.South Africa source
1937February 14: first competition takes place at a new ski jumping hill at Skalité near Szczyrk,Poland source
1937June 8 – The first total solar eclipse to exceed 7 minutes of totality, in over 800 years, is visible in the Pacific and Peru.source
1937July 14 – Transpolar flight of Gromov, Yumashev and Danilin lands near San Jacinto, CaliforniaUnited States source
1937December 4 – The Dandy comic is first published in Scotland; it continued until 2012 as a physical publication, then online until 2013.source
1937Sunbaker by photographer Max DupainAustralia source
1937A. G. Macdonell publishes My Scotland.Scotland source
193712–14 July — A world-record non-stop Transpolar flight of Gromov, Yumashev and Danilin, by the crew led by Mikhail Gromov, from Moscow to San Jacinto, CaliforniaSoviet Union source
1937Summer - Literary magazine Wales first published, edited by Keidrych Rhys.Wales source
1938January 11 – Leading Korean dancer Choi Seung-hee arrives in San Francisco to begin her international tour in the United States. She is the first Korean Wave entertainer.United States source
193814 January – Norway claims Queen Maud Land in Antarctica.Norway source
1938April 18 – Superman first appears in Action Comics #1 (cover date June). The date is established in court documents released during the legal battle over the rights to Superman (on April 18, 2018, DC Comics released Action Comics #1000).source
1938July 14 – Howard Hughes sets a new record, by completing a 91-hour airplane flight around the world.source
1938July 18 – Wrong Way Corrigan takes off from New York, ostensibly heading for California. He lands in Ireland instead.source
193827 September – RMS Queen Elizabeth is launched at Clydebank; she is the largest ship in the world at this time.Scotland source
1938October 27 – DuPont announces a name for its new synthetic yarn: "nylon".source
1938December 17 – Otto Hahn discovers the nuclear fission of uranium, the scientific and technological basis of nuclear power, which marks the beginning of the Atomic Age.source
193817 December — Nuclear fission of heavy elements is discovered by German Otto Hahn and his assistant Fritz Strassmann.Germany source
1938Herbert E. Ives and G. R. Stilwell execute the Ives–Stilwell experiment, showing that ions radiate at frequencies affected by their motion.source
1938Dan Meyerstein, Israeli chemist and resident of Ariel UniversityMandatory Palestine source
1938Douglas Roots (Patea), second, top New ZealanderNew Zealand source
1938first edition of Witold Gombrowicz's Ferdydurke, even though published in October 1937, is dated 1938,Poland source
1938Emlyn Williams – The Corn is GreenWales source
1939January 1 – The Protection of Young Persons Act, passed on April 30, 1938, the Working Hours Regulations.source
19392 January – Eyvind Andersen, judge (born 1874).Norway source
1939January 6 – Otto Hahn's discoveries in the field of nuclear fission are published in Naturwissenschaften.source
1939January 7 – French physicist Marguerite Perey identifies francium, the last chemical element first discovered in nature.source
19397 January – Physicist Marguerite Perey identifies francium, the last chemical element first discovered in nature.France source
1939January 14 – Norway claims Queen Maud Land in Antarctica.source
19397 March – Harland and Wolff's Belfast shipyard launched the ocean liner RMS Andes for Royal Mail Lines.Northern Ireland source
19391 May – New Congress working committee announced.India source
1939July 27 – The first recorded snow falls in Auckland, New Zealand, since records began in 1853.source
193930 September – Identity cards introduced.United Kingdom source
1939October 21 – The first meeting of the U.S. Advisory Committee on Uranium is held under Lyman James Briggs, authorized by President Roosevelt to oversee neutron experiments, a precursor of the Manhattan Project.United States source
1939November 1–2 – WWII: Physicist Hans Ferdinand Mayer writes the Oslo Report on German weapons systems, and passes it to the British Secret Intelligence Service.source
193917 December: The Graf Spee is scuttled off Montevideo harbour.New Zealand source
1939Kirlian photography is invented by Semyon Kirlian.source
1939Howard Spring - Heaven Lies About UsWales source
1940February 7 – RKO release Walt Disney's second full-length animated film, Pinocchio.United States source
194017 February – Waldemar Christofer Brøgger, geologist and mineralogist (born 1851)Norway source
1940February 27 – The radioactive isotope carbon-14 is discovered by Martin Kamen and Sam Ruben at the University of California, Berkeley.source
1940November 11 – WWII: German auxiliary cruiser Atlantis captures top secret British mail intended for the British Far East Command from the SS Automedon, and sends it to Japan.source
194018 November – Haim Harari, Israeli theoretical physicist; President of the Weizmann Institute of ScienceMandatory Palestine source
1940December 14 – Plutonium is first synthesized in the laboratory, by a team led by Glenn T. Seaborg and Edwin McMillan, at the University of California, Berkeley.source
1940In Korea, the Hunminjeongeum (1446) is discovered, explaining the basis of the Hangul alphabet.source
1940Wilbur Franks invents the g-suit at the University of TorontoCanada source
1940In 1940, German optometrist Heinrich Wöhlk invented plastic Contact lenses.Germany source
1940New Zealand Trotting Cup – MarleneNew Zealand source
1940Portuguese Mathematical Society foundedPortugal source
1940Grace Williams - Fantasia on Welsh Nursery Tunes (score dated 9 February)Wales source
1941January 1 – Thailand's Prime Minister Plaek Phibunsongkhram decrees January 1 as the official start of the Thai solar calendar new year (thus the previous year that began April 1 had only 9 months).source
1941January 4 – The short subject Elmer's Pet Rabbit is released, marking the second appearance of Bugs Bunny, and also the first to have his name on a title card.source
1941February 23 – Glenn T. Seaborg and associates isolate and discover plutonium, at the University of California, Berkeley.source
194125 March – The Women's Auxiliary Australian Air Force (WAAAF) is formed.Australia source
19411 May – Magne Thomassen, speed skater and Olympic silver medallistNorway source
1941May 10 – Rudolf Hess parachutes into Scotland, claiming to be on a peace mission.source
194110 May – Rudolf Hess parachutes into Scotland claiming to be on a peace mission.Scotland source
1941May 15 – Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak begins, as the New York Yankees' center fielder goes 1 for 4 against Chicago White Sox pitcher Eddie Smith in baseball.source
1941May 15 – Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak begins as the New York Yankee center fielder goes one for 4 against Chicago White Sox pitcher Eddie Smith.United States source
1941June 20 – Walt Disney's live-action/animated feature The Reluctant Dragon is released.source
1941July 19 – The Tom and Jerry cartoon short The Midnight Snack is released; it is the second appearance for the duo, and the first in which they are officially named.source
19416 September — The requirement to wear the Star of David with the word "Jew" inscribed, is extended to all Jews over the age of 6 in German-occupied areas.Germany source
1941The word "Teenager" is first recorded in print as a singular conjoined noun, in Popular Science magazine (U.S.)source
1941September – Sir Archibald Rowlands joins the Beaverbrook and Harriman mission to Moscow.Wales source
1941October 21 – Comic book superheroine Wonder Woman, created by William Moulton Marston and H. G. Peter, makes her first appearance in All Star Comics #8, "Introducing Wonder Woman", in the US (cover date December 1941).source
1941October 23 – Walt Disney's fourth animated film Dumbo is released in the United States.source
1941Auckland Trotting Cup – UenukuNew Zealand source
1941sixteen German aircraft bombed Grodno at 07:15 from the altitude of 1 kmSoviet Union source
1942February 20 – Lieutenant Edward O'Hare becomes America's first World War II flying ace.United States source
1942March 4 – WWII: Operation K – The Japanese launch an unsuccessful attack carried out by two Kawanishi H8K ("Emily") flying boats at Pearl Harbor. This is the longest distance ever undertaken by a two-plane bombing mission, and one of the longest bombing sorties ever planned without fighter escort.source
194211 June – Per Willy Guttormsen, speed skaterNorway source
1942June 13 – German scientists under Ernst Steinhoff at Peenemünde Army Research Center test a 12-ton rocket (known later as the V-2 rocket) with a one-ton warhead.source
1942The United States Eighth Air Force inauspiciously flies its first mission in Europe, using borrowed British planes, and bombs targets in the Netherlands, such as De Kooy Airfield, attached to the Den Helder Naval Base. Three of six aircraft return; For this mission, Captain Charles C. Kegelman is the first member of the Force to be awarded the U.S. Distinguished Flying Cross.source
1942August 20 – Plutonium is isolated for the first time, at the Metallurgical Laboratory of the University of Chicago.source
194226 August – Irish Willow rescues 47 survivors from the British ship Empire Breeze in the Atlantic.Ireland source
194224 September – Andrée Borrel and Lise de Baissac became the first female SOE agents to be parachuted into occupied France.France source
1942October 3 – The first A-4 rocket is successfully launched from Test Stand VII at Peenemünde, Germany. The rocket flies 147 kilometers and reaches an altitude of 84.5 kilometers, becoming the first man-made object to reach space.source
19423 October — The first A-4 rocket is successfully launched from Test Stand VII at Peenemünde, Germany. The rocket flies 147 kilometers wide and reaches a height of 84.5 kilometers, becoming the first man-made object to reach space.Germany source
19421 November – Carl Fredrik Kolderup, geologist (born 1869).Norway source
1942December 2 – Manhattan Project: Below the bleachers of Stagg Field at the University of Chicago, a team led by Enrico Fermi initiates the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction (a coded message, "The Italian navigator has landed in the new world" is then sent to U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt).source
1942December 7 – The battleship USS New Jersey is launched at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.source
19427 December – Ehud Kalai, Israeli-American game theoristMandatory Palestine source
1942The Pea-Pickers by Eve Langley is first publishedAustralia source
19439 January – Odd Magnus Faltinsen, mathematician and professor of marine technology.Norway source
194317 June – British aircraft carrier HMS Campania is launched at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast.Northern Ireland source
194319 June – Jackie Paterson wins the world flyweight boxing title by a knockout in the first minute at Hampden Park in Glasgow.Scotland source
1943August 4 – WWII: The aircraft carrier USS Intrepid is launched at Newport News, Virginia.source
19433 September – Eleanor Roosevelt flies out from Auckland.New Zealand source
1943December 2 – Fifteen atomic scientists, including Soviet spy Klaus Fuchs, arrive from Britain to join the US atomic research project.United States source
194330 December - The latest edition of the newspaper El Progreso de Coquimbo circulates.Chile source
1943December - The prototype of the CNNA HL-8 makes its maiden flight.Brazil source
1943William Dobell wins the Archibald Prize with his portrait of Joshua SmithAustralia source
1944January 25 – A total solar eclipse is visible in Pacific Ocean, South America, Atlantic Ocean and Africa, the 48th solar eclipse of Solar Saros 130.source
194411 March – Øyvind Grøn, physicistNorway source
1944March - Cape Verdean review Certeza started publishing in PraiaCape Verde source
194430 April or 1 May – 600 gallons (~2700 litres) of petroleum are dispatched to Gardez in a tanker lorry to supply aerial operations.Afghanistan source
194420 May – Aircraft carrier HMS Warrior is launched at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast to British Admiralty order.Northern Ireland source
1944June 20 – WWII: A V-2 rocket becomes the first man-made object to cross the Kármán line and reach the edge of space.source
1944June — German V-2 rockets on test from Peenemünde become the first man-made objects to enter space. By the end of the month, more than 380,000 Hungarian Jews have been transferred to concentration camps - around half of the country's Jewish population.Germany source
1944July 20 – The annular solar eclipse of July 20, 1944 is visible in Africa, Indian Ocean, Asia, Pacific Ocean and Australia, and is the 35th solar eclipse of Solar Saros 135.source
194416 November: First issue of the Rico Tipo comic bookArgentina source
1944Ern Malley poems first published, revealing a major Australian literary hoax.Australia source
1944Il marito in collegio (Giovannino Guareschi)Italy source
19456 January – Five Hawker Hind aircraft leave Kabul for Jalalabad; they will carry out reconnaissance once every two weeks and return in April.Afghanistan source
1945February 5 – The first jeepney arrives in Manila.Philippines source
1945February 21 – The last V-2 rocket is launched from Peenemünde.source
194521 February – The last V-2-rocket is launched from Peenemünde.Germany source
194527 February – Aircraft carrier HMCS Bonaventure is launched at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast to British Admiralty order as HMS Powerful.Northern Ireland source
1945March 2 – The rocket-propelled Bachem Ba 349 Natter is first test launched at Stetten am kalten Markt. The launch fails and the pilot, Lothar Sieber, dies.source
1945May 2 – Neuengamme concentration camp near Hamburg is evacuated at about this date.source
1945August 7 – U.S. President Harry Truman announces the successful atomic bombing of Hiroshima, while he is returning from the Potsdam Conference aboard the U.S. Navy heavy cruiser USS Augusta, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.source
1945August 30 - Douglas MacArthur arrives in Japan.Japan source
1945October – Arthur C. Clarke puts forward the idea of a geosynchronous communications satellite, in a Wireless World magazine article.source
1945November 15 – Harry S. Truman, Clement Attlee and Mackenzie King share nuclear information with the U.N. and call for a United Nations Atomic Energy Commission.source
1945November 16 – The United States controversially imports 88 German scientists to help in the production of rocket technology.source
194510 December - Professor Gabriela Mistral receives the Nobel Prize for Literature awarded by the Swedish Academy.Chile source
194522 December – Amiram Goldblum, Israeli chemist and political activistMandatory Palestine source
1945A team at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (led by Charles D. Coryell) discovers chemical element 61, the only one still missing between 1 and 96 on the periodic table, which they will name promethium. Found by analysis of fission products of irradiated uranium fuel, its discovery is not made public until 1947.source
1945Auckland Trotting Cup – Sea BornNew Zealand source
1946January 10 – Project Diana bounces radar waves off the Moon, measuring the exact distance between the Earth and the Moon, and proves that communication is possible between Earth and outer space, effectively opening the Space Age.source
194615 April – Tsvi Misinai, Israeli computer scientist and researcherMandatory Palestine source
1946April 16 – The Eureka Diamond, the first diamond discovered in South Africa, is sold in London for £5,700.South Africa source
1946April 22: Sazae-san is first published.Japan source
1946May 10 – The first V-2 rocket to be successfully launched in the United States is fired from White Sands Missile Range.source
1946July 1 – Nuclear testing: Operation Crossroads, a series of nuclear weapon tests conducted by the United States at Bikini Atoll in Micronesia, is initiated by the detonation of Able at an altitude of 520 feet (158 m).source
1946July 25 – Nuclear testing: In the first underwater test of the atomic bomb, the surplus USS Saratoga is sunk near Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean, when the United States detonates the Baker device during Operation Crossroads.source
19466 August – on the first anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, Captain Bob Lewis, the co-pilot of the Enola Gay, the aircraft which dropped the bomb, arrives at Shannon Airport, completing his first flight as a civil aviation pilot.Ireland source
1946A Tiger Moth aircraft flies from Peshawar to Kabul, bringing the Afghan government's stock of this aircraft type up to 8.Afghanistan source
1946December 14 – Aspen Skiing Company opens Aspen Mountain (ski area) in Colorado with Ski Lift No. 1, at 7,980 ft the world's longest chairlift at this time.source
1946The 20 mm M61 Vulcan Gatling gun contract is released.source
1946The Magic 8 Ball is invented by Albert C. Carter and Abe Bookman.source
1946New Zealand defeats Australia 2–0 in a Rugby union testAustralia source
1946Caídos do Céu, directed by Luiz de BarrosBrazil source
1946New Zealand Trotting Cup – IntegrityNew Zealand source
1946Kim Il Sung, in March 1946, issued his 20-Point Platform.North Korea source
1947February 20 – The U.S. Army Ordnance Corps Hermes program V-2 rocket Blossom I is launched into space, carrying plant material and fruitflies, the first living things to enter space.source
1947February 21 – Edwin Land demonstrates the first "instant camera", his Polaroid Land Camera, to a meeting of the Optical Society of America in New York City.source
1947April 7 – The largest recorded sunspot group appears on the solar surface.source
1947April 18 – The British Royal Navy detonates 6,800 tons of explosives, in an attempt to demolish the fortified island of Heligoland, Germany, in another of the largest man-made non-nuclear explosions in history.source
194722 April – British Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Centaur (laid down 1944) is launched at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast.Northern Ireland source
194710 May – South Africa wins 2–1 at the Sydney Cricket Grounds, Australia.South Africa source
194717 June - Icelandic airline Loftleiðir commences its first international flight, from Reykjavík to Copenhagen.Iceland source
1947June 24 – Kenneth Arnold makes the first widely reported UFO sighting near Mount Rainier, Washington. Over 800 copycat sightings are reported throughout the US in the coming following weeks.source
1947June 24 – Kenneth Arnold makes the first widely reported UFO sighting near Mount Rainier, Washington. The Arnold sighting marks the start of the 1947 flying disc craze.United States source
1947June – The Doomsday Clock of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is introduced.source
1947July 8 – Roswell UFO incident: A supposedly downed extraterrestrial spacecraft is reportedly found near Roswell, New Mexico.source
1947July 9 – 'Flying disc' photographs published in Phoenixsource
1947July 11 – The ship Exodus leaves France for Palestine, with 4,500 Jewish Holocaust survivor refugees on board.source
1947Muhammad Ali Jinnah and his sister arrive on August 7, at the Mauripur Airport from New Delhi.Pakistan source
194727 September – Carlton 13.8 (86) defeats Essendon 11.19 85 to win the 51st VFL Premiership in the 1947 VFL Grand Final.Australia source
194719 October – Gunnar Staalesen, writerNorway source
1947November 2 – In Long Beach, California, United States, designer and airplane pilot Howard Hughes carries out the one and only flight of the Hughes H-4 Hercules ("Spruce Goose"), the largest fixed-wing aircraft ever built and flown. This flight only lasts 8 minutes.source
1947Who Has Seen the Wind? - W.O. MitchellCanada source
1947New Zealand national rugby league team beat Wales 28-20New Zealand source
1948January 7-UNCOK visits South Korea.South Korea source
19482 February – Luxembourg Airlines Company makes its first flight, from Luxembourg – Findel to Paris – Le Bourget.Luxembourg source
1948February 16 – Miranda, innermost of the large moons of Uranus, is discovered by Gerard Kuiper.source
194823 February – The film Kapati Arakshakaya is released.Sri Lanka source
194825 March – second deportation. Over 20,500 people are sent to Siberia.Estonia source
1948April 1 – Physicists Ralph Asher Alpher and George Gamow publish the Alpher–Bethe–Gamow paper, about the Big Bang.source
1948May 9 – Solar eclipse of May 9, 1948: An annular solar eclipse is visible in Japan and South Korea, and is the 32nd solar eclipse of Solar Saros 137. This eclipse is very short, lasting just 0.3 seconds. The path width is just about 200 meters wide (approximately 218 yards).source
1948May 29 – The Casimir effect is predicted by Dutch physicist Hendrik Casimir.source
1948June 3 – The Palomar Observatory telescope is finished in California.source
1948June 11 – The first monkey astronaut, Albert I, is launched into space from White Sands, New Mexico.source
194822 June – British Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Bulwark (laid down May 1945) is launched at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast.Northern Ireland source
1948June 26 – The Berlin Airlift begins.source
1948August 14 – 1948 Ashes series: Australian batsman Don Bradman, playing his last Test cricket match, against England at The Oval, is bowled by Eric Hollies for a duck (leaving his career Test batting average at 99.94); however, "The Invincibles" win the match by an innings and 149 runs, and The Ashes 4–0.source
1948August 24 – Dov Lupi, Israeli-American gymnast.Israel source
1948October 5 – The International Union for the Protection of Nature (later known as the International Union for Conservation of Nature, IUCN) is established in Fontainebleau, France.source
1948October 10 – The R-1 missile on test becomes the first Soviet launch to enter space.source
1948November 16 – Operation Magic Carpet to transport Jews from Yemen to Israel begins.source
1948November 20 – Geoffrey B. Orbell rediscovers the Takahē, last seen 50 years previously, near Lake Te Anau, New Zealand.source
1948December 6 – Richard Nixon displays microfilm from the "Pumpkin Papers" to the press.source
1948Charles Warrell creates the first I-Spy books in the United Kingdom.source
1948The last recorded sighting is made of the Caspian tiger, in Kazakh SSR.source
1948One of the few Australian songs to top the Australian charts "Good-Night Mister Moon" by Allan Ryan and William FlynnAustralia source
1948Unknown date – The Interpretation Acts 1948 was enacted.Malaya source
1949January 11 – Los Angeles, California, receives its first recorded snowfall.United States source
19495 February - Chilean Army Captain Alberto Larraguibel breaks the high Jump world record with his horse Huaso, overcoming an obstacle of 2.47 meters.Chile source
194911 February – The last detainees of the Cyprus internment camps depart for Israel.Israel source
194921 February – Anders Beer Wilse, photographer (born 1865)Norway source
1949March 28 – English astronomer Fred Hoyle coins the term Big Bang (although describing the model as "unsatisfactory") during a BBC Third Programme radio broadcast.source
1949March 31 - Newfoundland becomes Canada's 10th province at a fraction of a second from April 1Canada source
1949May 1 – Nereid, a moon of Neptune, is discovered by Gerard Kuiper.source
1949June 14 – Albert II, a rhesus monkey aboard U.S. Hermes project V-2 rocket Blossom IVB, becomes the first primate to enter space. He is killed on impact at return.source
1949July 27 – The de Havilland Comet, the world's first jet-powered airliner, makes its first flight, in England.source
1949October: Hideki Yukawa becomes the first Japanese winner of a Nobel Prize.Japan source
1949November 12 – The Volkswagen Type 2 panel van is unveiled in Germany.source
19499 December – Pippi Longstocking releasedSweden source
1949D. R. Kaprekar discovers the convergence property of the number 6174.source
1949date unknown - The Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Físicas is founded by Cesar Lattes, José Leite Lopes, and Jayme Tiomno.Brazil source
19504 January – A decree is passed amending petroleum law.Colombia source
1950April 2 — Drifting ice station North Pole-2 is established.Soviet Union source
1950April 14 – Influential British adventure comic Eagle is launched.source
1950May 14 – The Huntsville Times runs the headline "Dr. von Braun Says Rocket Flights Possible to Moon."source
195024 September – The airlift of some 50,000 Jews from Yemen and Aden to Israel, called Operation Magic Carpet, is completed.Israel source
1950October 2 – The comic strip Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz is first published in seven U.S. newspapers.source
1950October – Turing test published.source
1950November 10 – A U.S. Air Force B-50 Superfortress bomber, experiencing an in-flight emergency, jettisons and detonates a Mark 4 nuclear bomb over Quebec, Canada (the device lacks its plutonium core).source
1950Canadians Harry Wasylyk, Larry Hansen and Frank Plomp introduce the plastic bin bag, for garbage collection.source
1950Grey Boots wins the Caulfield CupAustralia source
1950Ulrich Becher - Brasilianischer Romanzero (published in Vienna)Brazil source
1950Unknown date – The Evidence Act 1950 was enacted.Malaya source
1950Auckland Trotting Cup – Victory GlobeNew Zealand source
1950W. Gibb and H.J. van Zyl – Silver, pairsSouth Africa source
1951March 3 or 5 – Jackie Brenston "and His Delta Cats" (actually Ike Turner's Kings of Rhythm) record "Rocket 88" at Sam Phillips' Sun Studio in Memphis, Tennessee, a candidate for the first rock and roll record (released in April). It is covered on June 14 by Bill Haley and His Saddlemen.United States source
19519 April – Vilhelm Bjerknes, physicist and meteorologist (born 1862)Norway source
19512 June – The first Colorado beetle is discovered in Sweden.Sweden source
1951July 22 – Soviet space dogs Dezik and Tsygan become the first to enter space, in a 15-minute sub-orbital spaceflight in an R-1 rocket, being safely parachuted back to earth.source
195116 August – The Australian Financial Review is first published.Australia source
1951September 26–28 – A blue sun is seen over Europe: the effect is due to ash coming from the Canadian forest fires 4 months previously.source
19511 October – Pakistan Standard Time (UTC+05:00) is introduced and implemented following the findings of mathematician Prof Mahmood Anwar. The country had been using the Indian Standard Time as the time standard until then.Pakistan source
1951December 20 – The World Meteorological Organization becomes a specialized agency of the United Nations.source
1951Kay Werner Nielsen (DEN) and Oscar Plattner (SUI) win the Six Days of Copenhagen six-day track cycling race.Denmark source
1951New Zealand Trotting Cup – Van DiemanNew Zealand source
1951W. F. Grimes – The Prehistory of WalesWales source
195219 February – Knut Hamsun, author, Nobel Prize in Literature laureate (born 1859)Norway source
1952March 22 – Wernher von Braun publishes the first in his series of articles titled Man Will Conquer Space Soon!, including ideas for crewed flights to Mars and the Moon.source
1952March 22 – Wernher von Braun publishes the first in his series of articles entitled Man Will Conquer Space Soon!, including ideas for crewed flights to Mars and the Moon.United States source
195216 April – Esther Roth-Shahamorov, former Israeli track and field athlete.Israel source
1952May 3 – U.S. lieutenant colonels Joseph O. Fletcher and William P. Benedict land a plane at the geographic North Pole.source
1952May 3 – The first regular jet flight between South Africa and Britain is started with the arrival of a De Havilland Comet with 36 passengers at Johannesburg.South Africa source
195212 August – The Firebird releasedSweden source
1952August 26 – A British passenger jet makes a return crossing of the Atlantic Ocean in the same day.source
1952November 20 – The first official passenger flight over the North Pole is made, from Los Angeles to Copenhagen.source
1952Supramar launches the first commercial high-speed craft, a hydrofoil.source
1952Frank Hinder wins the Blake Prize for Religious Art with his work Flight into EgyptAustralia source
1952João Gilberto - "Quando Ela Sai"Brazil source
1952New Zealand Trotting Cup – Mobile GlobeNew Zealand source
1953January 14 – The CIA-sponsored Robertson Panel first meets to discuss the UFO phenomenon.source
1953January 20: Lima Barreto's film O Cangaceiro is released in cinemas.Brazil source
195323 February – The Finnish oil tanker Wiima, carrying 7,000 tons of jet fuels and bound for Communist China, was ordered to sail into Singapore waters by the British authority. The ship was eventually allowed to leave Singapore for Kokkola on 12 May 1953 after it sold its cargo to the US Navy ship USS Cahaba for a price of US$500,000 (about US$5.9 million in 2024 money).Singapore source
1953February 28 – James Watson and Francis Crick of Britain's University of Cambridge announce their discovery of the structure of the DNA molecule.source
1953April 25 – Francis Crick and James Watson publish "Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid", their description of the double helix structure of DNA.source
1953August 18 – The second Kinsey Report, Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, on American sexual habits, is issued.United States source
1953September 4 – The discovery of REM sleep is first published, by researchers Eugene Aserinsky and Nathaniel Kleitman.source
195321 September – Lars Saabye Christensen, authorNorway source
1953Mimi Coertse leaves South Africa for London.South Africa source
1953October 10 – Roland (Monty) Burton wins the 1953 London to Christchurch air race, in under 23 hours flying time.source
1953Date unknown – Lucien Gillen (LUX) and Ferdinando Terruzzi (ITA) win the Six Days of Copenhagen six-day track cycling race.Denmark source
1953Date unknown - Ziegler–Natta catalyst invented by Karl Ziegler and Giulio Natta.Germany source
1953New Zealand Trotting Cup – AdorianNew Zealand source
1954January 21 – The first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus, is launched in Groton, Connecticut, by First Lady of the United States Mamie Eisenhower.source
1954Mimi Coertse starts tutorship under Maria Hittorff and Josef Witt.South Africa source
195417 February – Miki Berkovich, former Israeli basketball player.Israel source
195420 February: Yvette Williams breaks the world long jump record by jumping 20 ft at Gisborne.New Zealand source
1954March 9 – American journalists Edward R. Murrow and Fred W. Friendly produce a 30-minute See It Now documentary, entitled A Report on Senator Joseph McCarthy.source
1954April 7 – Dwight D. Eisenhower gives his "domino theory" speech, during a news conference.source
1954April 12 – Bill Haley & His Comets record "Rock Around the Clock" in their first session for American Decca in New York City; it is released on May 20 as a B-side, but only in 1955 becomes a #1 hit, helping to initiate the rock and roll craze.source
1954April 14 – A Soviet spy ring in Australia is unveiled.source
195417 April – Article 4 of Decree nr. 189 establishes ensigns for auxiliary and Coast Guard vessels as well as serving ships of the Romanian Navy.Romania source
1954April 26 – Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai is released in Japan.source
1954July 1 – The United States officially begins using the international unit of the nautical mile, equal to 6,076.11549 ft. or 1,852 meters.source
195417 August – Ocean liner SS Southern Cross is launched by Harland and Wolff in Belfast.Northern Ireland source
1954September 14 – The Soviet Union carries out the Totskoye nuclear exercise.source
195414 September – The Totskoye nuclear exercise is held.Soviet Union source
1954October 18 – The comic strip Hi and Lois, by Mort Walker and Dik Browne, is launched in the United States.source
1954November 3 - Godzilla released in Japan.Japan source
1954Date unknown - Wittig reaction discovered.Germany source
1955March 20 – The movie adaptation of Evan Hunter's novel Blackboard Jungle premieres in the United States, featuring the famous single "Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley & His Comets. Teenagers jump from their seats to dance to the song.source
1955July 7 – The New Zealand Special Air Service is formed.source
195512 August – The aircraft carrier HMAS Vengeance is returned to the British Royal Navy.Australia source
1955September 16 – A Soviet Navy Zulu-class submarine becomes the first to launch a ballistic missile.source
19551 October – South Africa wins 4–1 at the Newcastle's Sports Grounds, Australia.South Africa source
195517 October – Charles Mackenzie Bruff, forensic chemist (born 1887).Norway source
1955October 20 – Disc jockey Bill Randle of WERE (Cleveland) is the key presenter of a concert at Brooklyn High School (Ohio), featuring Pat Boone and Bill Haley & His Comets and opening with Elvis Presley, not only Elvis's first performance north of the Mason–Dixon line, but also his first filmed performance, for a documentary on Randle titled The Pied Piper of Cleveland.United States source
1955November 19 – C. Northcote Parkinson first propounds 'Parkinson's law', in The Economist.source
1955December 22 – American cytogeneticist Joe Hin Tjio discovers the correct number of human chromosomes, forty-six.source
1955Glenn Gould's first recording of the Goldberg Variations is made.Canada source
1955Sunan Shuofang International AirportChina source
1955Denmark in the Eurovision Song Contest 1985.Denmark source
1955The Querétaro Intercontinental Airport is established.Mexico source
195625 February – Jacob Levitzki (born 1904), Russian (Ukraine)-born Israeli mathematician.Israel source
1956April 14 – Videotape is first demonstrated at the 1956 NARTB (modern-day NAB) convention in Chicago, United States, by Ampex. It is the demonstration of the first practical and commercially successful videotape format known as 2" Quadruplex.source
1956May 9 – Manaslu, eighth highest mountain in the world (in the Nepalese Himalayas) is first ascended, by a Japanese team.source
195618 May – Swiss mountaineers Ernst Reiss and Fritz Luchsinger successfully climbed Lhotse, the world's fourth highest mountain, for the first time.Switzerland source
195620 May – Ingvar Ambjørnsen, writer (died 2025)Norway source
1956June 5 – The text of Nikita Khrushchev's February attack on Stalin's reputation, "On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences", is first published in the West, in The New York Times.source
195611 June – Seventh Heaven releasedSweden source
1956July 4 – An American Lockheed U-2 reconnaissance aircraft makes its first flight over the Soviet Union.source
1956July 31 – Cricket: Jim Laker sets an extraordinary record at Old Trafford in the fourth Test between England and Australia, taking 19 wickets in a first class match (the previous best was 17).source
195626 October – Turkey joined the International Atomic Energy Agency IAEATurkey source
1956October 31 – A United States Navy team becomes the third group to reach the South Pole (arriving by air), and commences construction of the first permanent Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station.source
1956Kurrewa IV takes line honours and Solo wins on handicap in the Sydney to Hobart Yacht RaceAustralia source
1956Una strana gioia di viviere by Sandro Penna.Italy source
1956The Chemical Society of Mexico is formed.Mexico source
1957January 1 – The first Canadian peacekeepers arrive in Egypt after the Suez CrisisCanada source
195720 January: Scott Base, New Zealand's main presence in Antarctica, is established by Sir Edmund Hillary.New Zealand source
1957January 26: The Ibirapuera Planetarium in São Paulo opens to the public. It is the first planetarium in the Southern Hemisphere.Brazil source
1957February 16 – Ingmar Bergman's film The Seventh Seal opens at cinemas in Sweden.source
195727 February - Germany in the Eurovision Song Contest 1957Germany source
1957April 30 – The solar eclipse of April 30, 1957, a non-central annular solar eclipse that does not have a northern path limit, takes place. This is the last of 57 umbral solar eclipses of Solar Saros 118.source
1957April – IBM sells the first compiler for the Fortran scientific programming language.source
1957May 15 – Stanley Matthews plays his final international game, ending an English record international career of almost 23 years.source
195724 June – Moshe Weizmann (born 1878), Russian-born Professor of Chemistry at the Hebrew University, brother of first Israeli president, Haim Weizmann.Israel source
1957July 1 – The International Geophysical Year begins.source
1957July 1 – Hugh Everett III publishes the first scientifically founded many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.source
1957July 16 – United States Marine Major John Glenn flies an F8U supersonic jet from California to New York in 3 hours, 23 minutes and 8 seconds, setting a new transcontinental speed record.source
1957July 23 – Asghar Khan becomes the first native Commander-in-Chief of the Pakistan Air Force and the world's youngest Air Vice Marshal at 36 years old.source
1957July 29 – The International Atomic Energy Agency is established.source
195721 August – Harald Sverdrup, oceanographer and meteorologist (born 1888)Norway source
1957October 1 – The Africanized bee is accidentally released in Brazil.source
1957October 4 – Space Age – Sputnik program: The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth.source
19574 October – Sputnik 1, the first artificial Earth satellite, is launched.Soviet Union source
1957October 9 – The Jodrell Bank radio telescope in Cheshire, England, is controlled from its control room for the first time.source
1957October 11 – The orbit of the last stage of the R-7 Semyorka rocket (carrying Sputnik I) is first successfully calculated on an IBM 704 computer at the MIT Computation Center as part of Operation Moonwatch, Cambridge, Massachusetts.source
1957November 3 – Sputnik program: The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 2, with the first animal to orbit the Earth, a dog named Laika, on board. There is no technology available to return her to Earth.source
1957November 13 – Gordon Gould invents the laser.source
1957December 6 – The first U.S. attempt to launch a satellite fails, when the Vanguard rocket blows up on the launch pad.source
1957Three new neo-grotesque sans-serif typefaces are released: Folio (designed by Konrad Bauer and Walter Baum), Neue Haas Grotesk (designed by Max Miedinger) and Univers (designed by Adrian Frutiger); all will be influential in the International Typographic Style of graphic design.source
1957Padraic Fiacc publishes Woe to the Boy.Northern Ireland source
1958January 4 – Sputnik 1 (launched on October 4, 1957) falls towards Earth from its orbit and burns up.source
19586 January – Shlomo Glickstein, former Israeli tennis player.Israel source
1958January 20 - Germany in the Eurovision Song Contest 1958Germany source
1958January 20 – In the 2nd innings of test match that opened between Pakistan and West Indies on January 17, Haneef Muhammad has set new record by staying on the crease for 16 hr 10 min, and scoring 337 runsPakistan source
1958February 2 – The Falcons aerobatic team of the Pakistan Air Force led by Wg Cdr Mitty Masud set a world record performing a 16 aircraft diamond loop in F-86 Sabres. 30,000 people are in attendance including President Iskandar Ali Mirza, General Ayub Khan, Air Marshal Asghar Khan, Air Commodore Nur Khan, C-in-C Turkish Air Force Hamdullah Suphi Göker, Chief of the Iraqi Air Force Abdul Kadhim Abaddi, Chief of the Imperial Iranian Air Force and Chief Guest King Zahir Shah in whose honor the performance has been organized.source
1958March 17 – The United States launches the Vanguard 1 satellite.source
1958April 3 – Bill Haley & His Comets play the first of a series of concerts in Buenos Aires.Argentina source
1958April 13 – The Soviet satellite Sputnik 2 (launched November 3, 1957) disintegrates during reentry from orbit.source
1958May 1 – U.S. space scientist James van Allen announces the discovery of Earth's magnetosphere.source
1958May 15 – The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 3.source
195815 May – Sputnik 3 is launched.Soviet Union source
1958May 18 – A U.S. Lockheed F-104 Starfighter sets a world speed record of 1404.19 mph.source
1958August 3 – The nuclear-powered submarine USS Nautilus becomes the first vessel to cross the North Pole under water.source
1958August 6 – Australian athlete Herb Elliott clips almost 3 seconds off the world record for the mile run at Santry Stadium, Dublin, recording a time of 3 minutes 54.5 seconds.source
1958August 17 – The first Thor-Able rocket is launched, carrying Pioneer 0, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Space Launch Complex 17. The launch fails due to a first stage malfunction.source
1958September 30 – The U.S.S.R. performs a nuclear test at Novaya Zemlya.source
1958October 1 – NASA starts operations and replaces the NACA in the United States.source
1958October 4 – The British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) uses one of its new de Havilland Comet 4s, G-APDB, to make the first commercial transatlantic flight by a jet airliner, from London to New York International Airport, Anderson Field via Gander.source
19584 October – Sabena breaks Brussels–Paris air speed record with an S58 helicopter.Belgium source
1958October 11 – Pioneer 1, the second and most successful of the 3 project Able space probes, becomes the first spacecraft launched by the newly formed NASA.source
1958December 15 – Arthur L. Schawlow and Charles H. Townes of Bell Laboratories publish a paper in Physical Review Letters setting out the principles of the optical laser.source
1958December 18 – The Bell XV-3 Tiltrotor makes the first true mid-air transition from vertical helicopter-type flight to fully level fixed-wing flight.source
1958December 18 – The United States launches SCORE, the world's first communications satellite.source
1958December 19 – A message from U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower is broadcast from the SCORE satellite.source
1958Denatonium, the bitterest substance known, is discovered. It is used as an aversive agent in products such as bleach to reduce the risk of children drinking them.source
1958Milkha Singh (field athletics player) had won the gold medalIndia source
1958Northern Ireland 1-1 ArgentinaNorthern Ireland source
1959January 2 – Soviet lunar probe Luna 1 is the first human-made object to attain escape velocity from Earth. It reaches the vicinity of Earth's Moon, where it was intended to crash-land, but instead becomes the first spacecraft to go into heliocentric orbit.source
19597 January – MS Hans Hedtoft departs from Copenhagen on her maiden journey to Greenland.Denmark source
195926 January – Fröken Chic releasedSweden source
1959February 6 – At Cape Canaveral, Florida, the first successful test firing of a Titan intercontinental ballistic missile is accomplished.source
1959February 17 – Vanguard 2, the first weather satellite, is launched to measure cloud cover for the United States Navy.source
1959February 20: Avro Arrow project is terminatedCanada source
1959February 28 – At 1:49 PST, Discoverer 1 was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base to serve as a "north–south polar satellite". The launch was actually the first of the Project CORONA reconnaissance satellites used by the CIA to spy on the Soviet Union. The first launch, and the next 11, were failures. A declassified CIA report concluded that "Today, most people believe the DISCOVERER I landed somewhere near the South Pole."Soviet Union source
1959March 3 – Lunar probe Pioneer 4 becomes the first American object to escape dominance by Earth's gravity.source
1959April 9 – NASA announces its selection of seven military pilots to become the first U.S. astronauts, later known as the 'Mercury Seven'.source
195914 May – Bjørn Ousland, comics writer.Norway source
1959May 28 – Jupiter AM-18 rocket launches two primates, Miss Baker and Miss Able, into space from Cape Canaveral in the United States along with living microorganisms and plant seeds. Successful recovery makes them the first living beings to return safely to Earth after space flight.source
1959June 9 – The USS George Washington is launched as the first submarine to carry ballistic missiles.source
1959July 7 – At 14:28 UT Venus occults the star Regulus. The rare event (which will next occur on October 1, 2044) is used to determine the diameter of Venus and the structure of Venus' atmosphere.source
1959July 17 – The first skull of Australopithecus is discovered by Louis Leakey and his wife Mary in the Olduvai Gorge of Tanzania.source
1959July 25 – The British SR.N1 hovercraft crosses the English Channel from Calais to Dover in just over 2 hours, on the 50th anniversary of Louis Blériot's first crossing by heavier-than-air craft.source
195929 July – Qantas launched its first jet service from Sydney to San Francisco via Nadi and Honolulu.Australia source
1959August 14 – Explorer 6 sends the first picture of Earth from orbit.source
1959September 14 – Soviet spacecraft Luna 2 becomes the first human-made object to crash on the Moon.source
1959October 7 – The Soviet probe Luna 3 sends back the first ever images of the far side of the Moon.source
1959October 13 – The United States launches research satellite Explorer 7.source
1959November 18 — MGM's widescreen, multimillion-dollar, Technicolor version of Ben-Hur, starring Charlton Heston, is released and becomes the studio's greatest hit up to this time. It is critically acclaimed and eventually wins 11 Academy Awards — a record held until 1998 (when 1997's Titanic becomes the first film to equal it).United States source
19592 December: Journalist Antônio Callado from Correio da Manhã publishes a series of reports on the Peasant Leagues of the Northeast.Brazil source
1959The current (as of 2024) design of the Japanese 10 yen coin is put into circulation.source
1960January 22 – Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh descend into the Mariana Trench in the bathyscaphe Trieste, reaching a depth of 10,911 m, and become the first human beings to reach the lowest spot on Earth.source
196010 March – Gad Frumkin (born 1887), Israeli jurist, only Jewish judge on the Supreme Court of Mandatory Palestine.Israel source
1960April 1 – The United States launches the first weather satellite, TIROS-1.source
19606 April – Short SC.1 VTOL research aircraft makes its first transition from vertical to horizontal flight and back, flying from Belfast Harbour Airport.Northern Ireland source
19601 May – The U-2 incident reveals that the United States uses Norwegian air bases as part of spying missions against the Soviet Union.Norway source
19601 May – The U-2 Incident begins when an American U-2 spy plane, piloted by Francis Gary Powers, is shot down by Soviet Air Defence Forces. The clandestine flight had taken off from the U.S. base at Badaber near Peshawar, Pakistan.Pakistan source
1960May 15 – The satellite Sputnik 4 is launched into orbit by the Soviet Union.source
1960June 1: In a record that still stands, a 114-pound roosterfish was caught by fisherman Abe Sackheim at La Paz, Baja California Sur.Mexico source
1960August 16 – Joseph Kittinger parachutes from a balloon over New Mexico at an altitude of about 102,800 ft. Kittinger sets world records for: high-altitude jump; free-fall by falling 16.0 miles (25.7 kilometers) before opening his parachute; first space dive, and fastest speed attained by a human being without mechanical or chemical assistance, about 982 k.p.h (614 m.p.h.). Kittinger survives more or less uninjured. He is also the first man to make a solo crossing of the Atlantic Ocean in a gas balloon, and the first man fully to witness the spherical curvature of the Earth. (Felix Baumgartner breaks his space diving record in 2012.)source
1960August 19 – Sputnik program: The satellite Sputnik 5 is launched, with the dogs Belka and Strelka (the Russian for "Squirrel" and "Little Arrow"), 40 mice, two rats and a variety of plants. This satellite returns to Earth the next day and all animals are recovered safely.source
1960September 8 – In Huntsville, Alabama, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower formally dedicates the Marshall Space Flight Center (which had been activated by NASA on July 1).source
1960December 1 – A Soviet satellite containing live animals (dogs Pcholka and Mushka) and plants is launched into orbit. Due to a malfunction, it burns up during re-entry.source
1960December 13 – The U.S. Navy's Commander Leroy Heath (pilot) and Lieutenant Larry Monroe (bombardier/navigator) establish a world flight-altitude record of 91,450 ft, with payload, in an A-5 Vigilante bomber carrying 1,000 kg, and better the previous world record by over 4 mi.source
1960December: Claridade review ceased publication after fourteen years of existenceCape Verde source
1960Frank Macfarlane Burnet is announced joint winner of the Nobel Prize for MedicineAustralia source
1960Air India enters United States with flights to New York.India source
1960New Zealand national rugby league teamNew Zealand source
1961January 31 – Ham, a 37-pound (17-kg) male chimpanzee, is rocketed into space aboard Mercury-Redstone 2, in a test of the Project Mercury spacecraft, designed to carry United States astronauts into space.source
1961February 1 – The United States tests its first Minuteman I intercontinental ballistic missile.source
1961February 12 – The USSR launches Venera 1 towards Venus.source
1961February 14 – Discovery of the chemical elements: Element 103, Lawrencium, is first synthesized in Berkeley, California.source
1961February 15 – The total solar eclipse of February 15, 1961, visible in the southern part of Europe, occurs.source
196125 February - Germany in the Eurovision Song Contest 1961Germany source
1961March 8 – The first U.S. Polaris submarines arrive at Holy Loch in Scotland.source
196113 March – Lise Lindbæk, war correspondent (born 1905).Norway source
1961April 12 – Vostok 1: Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human in space, orbiting the Earth once before parachuting to the ground.source
1961May 5 – Mercury program: Alan Shepard becomes the first American in space, aboard Mercury-Redstone 3.source
1961May 15 – J. Heinrich Matthaei alone performs the Poly-U-Experiment, and is the first person to recognize and understand the genetic code. This is the birthdate of modern genetics.source
1961May 19 – Venera 1 becomes the first man-made object to fly-by another planet by passing Venus (however, the probe lost contact with Earth a month earlier, and does not send back any data).source
1961May 25 – Apollo program: U.S. President Kennedy announces, before a special joint session of Congress, that the United States "should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth".source
1961June 13 – The NCC study of Ottawa's new Green Belt is completedCanada source
1961June 16 – Soviet ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev defects to the West at Paris–Le Bourget Airport while on tour with the Kirov Ballet.source
1961July 5 – The first Israeli rocket, Shavit 2, is launched.source
19615 July – The first Israeli rocket, Shavit 2, is launched.Israel source
1961July 19 – Trans World Airlines becomes the first airline to show regularly scheduled movies during its flights, presenting By Love Possessed to 1st-class passengers.source
1961July 21 – Mercury program: Gus Grissom, piloting the Mercury-Redstone 4 spacecraft Liberty Bell 7, becomes the second American to go into space (sub-orbital). After splashdown, the hatch prematurely opens, and the spacecraft sinks (it is recovered in 1999).source
1961July 31 – At Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts, the first All-Star Game tie in major league baseball history occurs, when the game is stopped in the 9th inning due to rain (the only tie until 2002 in MLB All-Star Game history).United States source
1961August 6 – Vostok 2: Soviet cosmonaut Gherman Titov becomes the second human to orbit the Earth, and the first to be in outer space for more than one day.source
1961August 7 – Vostok 2 lands in the Soviet Union.source
1961August 11 – An annular solar eclipse is visible from the Southern Ocean.source
1961September 19 – American couple Barney and Betty Hill claim that they saw a UFO as they returned from a trip to Canada through New Hampshire where they live. They later claim that they were abducted by aliens, among the first claimants of such an abduction.source
1961November 9 – Robert White records a world air speed record of 6,587 km/h, in an X-15.source
196111–16 December – Singapore took part in the 2nd South East Asian Peninsular Games. It clinched the fifth place, accumulating a total of 28 medals.Singapore source
1961Mimi Coertse is awarded the Medal of Honour of Die Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns.South Africa source
1961New Zealand Trotting Cup – InvictaNew Zealand source
1962January 26 – U.S. spacecraft Ranger 3 is launched to study the Moon; it later misses the Moon by 22,000 mi.source
19622 February - Germany in the Eurovision Song Contest 1962Germany source
19622 February – Shlomo Hestrin (born 1914), Canadian-born Israeli biochemist.Israel source
1962February 4 – First successful winter ascent of the Matterhorn's north face, by Hilti von Allmen and Paul Etter, is completed.source
1962February 4–5 – During a new moon and solar eclipse, an extremely rare grand conjunction of the classical planets occurs (it includes all five of the naked-eye planets plus the Sun and Moon), all of them within 16° of one another on the ecliptic. The total solar eclipse of February 5, 1962 is visible in Asia, Australia and the Pacific Ocean, and is the 49th solar eclipse of Solar Saros 130.source
1962February 10 – Captured American spy pilot Francis Gary Powers is exchanged for captured Soviet spy Rudolf Abel, in Berlin.source
196210 February - Indian National Committee for Space Research set up with Vikram Sarabhai from Physical Research Laboratory leading it.India source
1962February 20 – Project Mercury: Aboard Friendship 7, John Glenn becomes the first American to orbit the Earth, three times in 4 hours, 55 minutes.source
1962April 21 – The Century 21 Exposition World's Fair opens in Seattle, United States. This is also the Opening Day of the Seattle Space Needle.source
1962May 6 – A test of a W47 warhead fired from a Polaris missile – the only time a nuclear missile has been test fired with its warhead detonated – occurs near Palmyra Atoll south of Hawaii.source
1962May 24 – Project Mercury: Scott Carpenter orbits the Earth 3 times, in the U.S. Aurora 7 space capsule.source
1962June 17 — K-3 becomes the first Soviet submarine to reach the North Pole.Soviet Union source
19621 July - Taça de Portugal FinalPortugal source
1962July 10 – AT&T's Telstar, the world's first commercial communications satellite, is launched into orbit and activated the next day.source
196211 July (01:00 GMT) – First live transatlantic television transmission, via the Telstar communications satellite and Goonhilly Satellite Earth Station, is received in the UK and broadcast by the BBC. An error at the ground station causes the initial images to be of poor quality. A full public broadcast is made on 23 July.United Kingdom source
1962July 14 – Norma Nolan of Argentina is crowned Miss Universe 1962.source
1962July 17 – Nuclear testing: The "Small Boy" test shot Little Feller I becomes the last atmospheric test detonation, at the Nevada Test Site.source
1962July 22 – Mariner program: The U.S. Mariner 1 spacecraft flies erratically several minutes after launch and has to be destroyed.source
1962July 31 – Solar eclipse of July 31, 1962: An annular solar eclipse is visible in South America, the Atlantic Ocean, Africa and the Indian Ocean, and is the 36th solar eclipse of Solar Saros 135.source
1962August 13 – First successful ascent of the Matterhorn's west face, by Renato Daguin and Giovanni Ottin.source
1962August 18 – Norway launches its 1st sounding rocket, Ferdinand 1, from Andøya Space Center and becomes a space nation.source
1962August 27 – NASA launches the Mariner 2 space probe.source
1962September 12 – President John F. Kennedy, in his "We choose to go to the Moon" speech at Rice University, reaffirms that the U.S. will put a man on the Moon by the end of the decade.source
1962September 29 – The Canadian Alouette 1, the first satellite built outside the United States and the Soviet Union, is launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.source
1962September 29 – Alouette 1, Canada's first satellite, is launched.Canada source
1962October 3 – Project Mercury: Mercury-Atlas 8 – U.S. astronaut Walter Schirra orbits the Earth six times, in the Sigma 7 space capsule.source
1962November 1 – The Soviet Union begins dismantling its missiles in Cuba.source
1962December 14 – U.S. spacecraft Mariner 2 passes by Venus, becoming the first spacecraft to transmit data from another planet.source
1962Bledisloe Cup: retained by the All BlacksAustralia source
1962Nanning Wuxu International AirportChina source
1963January 9 – A total penumbral lunar eclipse is visible in the Americas, Europe, Africa and Asia, and is the 56th lunar eclipse of Lunar Saros 114. Gamma has a value of −1.01282. It occurs on the night between Wednesday, January 9 and Thursday, January 10, 1963.source
1963January 17 – A last quarter moon occurs between the penumbral lunar eclipse and the annular solar eclipse, only 12 hours, 29 minutes after apogee.source
196317 January – Prototype Short SC.7 Skyvan short-haul freighter first flies.Northern Ireland source
1963January 25 – A large annular solar eclipse covers 99.5% of the Sun and a narrow path (at most 19.6 km (12.2 mi)). It is visible in Chile, Argentina, South Africa and Madagascar, and is the 26th solar eclipse of Solar Saros 140. Gamma has a value of -0.48984.source
19633 March – Dixie Willis breaks Lyudmila Shevtsova's world record (2:04.3) in the women's 800 metres, clocking 2:01.2 in Perth.Australia source
196321 April - The first prize of Miss World Chile is given to Maria Pilar Aguirre Gómez.Chile source
1963May 2 – Berthold Seliger launches near Cuxhaven a 3-stage rocket with a maximum flight altitude of more than 62 mi (the only sounding rocket developed in Germany).source
1963May 15 – Project Mercury: NASA launches Gordon Cooper on Mercury-Atlas 9, the last Mercury mission (on June 12 NASA Administrator James E. Webb tells Congress the program is complete).source
1963May 21 - Establishment of the Seppiko-Mineyama Prefectural Natural ParkJapan source
1963May 23 – Fidel Castro visits the Soviet Union.source
1963June 13 – The cancellation of Mercury-Atlas 10 effectively ends the United States' crewed spaceflight Project Mercury.source
1963June 16 – Vostok 6 carries Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman into space.source
1963June 16 — Valentina Tereshkova, aboard Vostok 6, is the first woman in spaceSoviet Union source
1963June 19 – Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space, returns to Earth, landing in the Soviet Union.source
1963July 19 – American test pilot Joe Walker, flying the X-15, reaches an altitude of 65.8 miles (105.9 kilometers), making it a sub-orbital spaceflight by recognized international standards.source
1963July 26 – NASA launches Syncom 2, the world's first geostationary (synchronous) satellite.source
1963August 22 – American test pilot Joe Walker again achieves a sub-orbital spaceflight according to international standards, this time by piloting the X-15 to an altitude of 67.0 miles (107.8 kilometers).source
19639 October – Jeunesse Esch beat FC Haka 4–0 to become the only Luxembourgian side to progress to the last sixteen of the European Cup.Luxembourg source
1963November 1 – Arecibo Observatory, a radio telescope, officially begins operation in Puerto Rico.source
196321 November - India's first ever rocket launch was carried out at Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station Thiruvananthapuram. The launch was successful and it sent NASA-made Nike-Apache rocket to space.India source
1963December 5 – The Seliger Forschungs-und-Entwicklungsgesellschaft mbH demonstrates rockets for military use to military representatives of non-NATO-countries near Cuxhaven. Although these rockets land via parachute at the end of their flight and no allied laws are violated, the Soviet Union protests this action.source
1963Harvey Ball invents the ubiquitous smiley face symbol.source
1963David H. Frisch and J.H. Smith prove that the radioactive decay of mesons is slowed by their motion (see Einstein's special relativity and general relativity).source
1963The Spanish nuclear program, Project Islero, is born.Spain source
1964January 29 – Ranger 6 is launched by the US space agency NASA, on a mission to carry television cameras and crash-land on the Moon.source
1964January 29 – The Soviet Union launches two scientific satellites, Elektron I and II, from a single rocket.source
1964March 18: Hayakawa Electric (the predecessor of today's Sharp) and Sony announce that they have completed a prototype electronic calculator using Japanese-manufactured diodes and transistors.Japan source
1964March 20 – The precursor of the European Space Agency, ESRO (European Space Research Organization) is established per an agreement signed on June 14, 1962.source
1964April 8 – The U.S. Gemini 1 is launched, the first unmanned test of the 2-man spacecraft.source
1964April 17 – Jerrie Mock completes the first around-the-world airplane flight by a woman. Her solo flight in the Spirit of Columbus, which took 29 1/2 days, took off and landed at the Port Columbus International Airport in Ohio.source
196421 April – Hanna Neumann is named professor and chair of pure mathematics at the Australian National University in Canberra, becoming the first female professor of pure mathematics at an Australian university and the first woman to be appointed to a chair at ANU.Australia source
19641 June – Pakistan acquires from the United States its first submarine, the PNS Ghazi.Pakistan source
196410 June: The GTEPE (Special Project Study and Study Group), a precursor to GETEPE (Space Project Study and Executive Group), is created.Brazil source
1964July 31 – Ranger program: Ranger 7 sends back the first close-up photographs of the Moon (images are 1,000 times clearer than anything ever seen from Earth-bound telescopes).source
196417 August - Liverpool FC play their first match in Iceland, beating KR Reykjavik 5-0Iceland source
1964August 20 – The International Telecommunications Satellite Consortium (Intelsat) began to work.source
1964October 12 – The Soviet Union launches Voskhod 1 into Earth orbit as the first spacecraft with a multi-person crew and the first flight without space suits. The flight is cut short and lands again on October 13 after 16 orbits.source
1964October 12 — Voskhod 1 is the first space flight to carry more than one crewmen into orbit, and the first space flight without the use of spacesuits.Soviet Union source
1964November 5 – Mariner program: Mariner 3 spacecraft is launched from Cape Kennedy but fails.source
1964November 28 – Mariner program: NASA launches the Mariner 4 space probe from Cape Kennedy toward Mars to take television pictures of that planet in July 1965.source
196412 December – Bonni Ginzburg, Israeli goalkeeper.Israel source
1964Farrington Daniels becomes an early advocate of solar energy in his book Direct Use of the Sun's Energy, published by Yale University Press in the United States.source
1964Spring – First recognition of cosmic microwave background radiation as a detectable phenomenon.source
1964New Zealand Trotting Cup – CairnbraeNew Zealand source
1965February 4 – Trofim Lysenko is removed from his post as director of the Institute of Genetics at the Academy of Sciences in the Soviet Union. Lysenkoist theories are now treated as pseudoscience.source
1965February 15 – The maple leaf is adopted as the flag of Canada, replacing the Canadian Red Ensign flag.source
196527 February - Germany in the Eurovision Song Contest 1965Germany source
1965March 18 – Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov leaves his Voskhod 2 spacecraft for 12 minutes, becoming the first person to walk in space.source
1965March 23 – Gemini 3: NASA launches the United States' first 2-person crew (Gus Grissom, John Young) into Earth orbit.source
1965April 3 – The world's first space nuclear power reactor, SNAP-10A, is launched by the United States from Vandenberg AFB, California. The reactor operates for 43 days and remains in low Earth orbit.source
1965April 6 – The Intelsat I ("Early Bird") communications satellite is launched. It becomes operational May 2 and is placed in commercial service in June.source
196512 May – The liner SS Michelangelo enters service.Italy source
1965June 3 – Launch of Gemini 4, a 4 day mission during which Ed White performs the first space walk by an American astronaut.source
1965July 14 – U.S. spacecraft Mariner 4 flies by Mars, becoming the first spacecraft to return images from the Red Planet.source
1965August 21 – NASA launches Gemini 5 (Gordon Cooper, Pete Conrad) on the first 1-week space flight, as well as the first test of fuel cells for electrical power on such a mission.source
19659 September – Malaysian national birds were recognized in a Malaysian stamp series.Malaysia source
196515 September - Harry Reedman arrives in Lisbon to set up the Rhodesian mission there.Portugal source
1965September 18 – Comet Ikeya–Seki is first sighted by Japanese astronomers.source
1965September 18 - Comet Ikeya–Seki first sighted by Japanese astronomers.Japan source
1965September 27 – The largest tanker ship at this time, Tokyo Maru, is launched in Yokohama, Japan.source
196515 October – Abraham Fraenkel (born 1891), German-born Israeli mathematician.Israel source
1965October 21 – Comet Ikeya–Seki approaches perihelion, passing 450,000 km from the sun.source
1965October 29 – An 80-kiloton nuclear device is detonated at Amchitka Island, Alaska, as part of the Vela Uniform program, code-named Project Long Shot.source
1965October - Nanda Devi Plutonium Mission by Central Intelligence Agency.India source
1965November 15 – U.S. racer Craig Breedlove sets a new land speed record of 600.601 mph.source
1965November 16 – Venera program: The Soviet Union launches the Venera 3 space probe from Baikonur, Kazakhstan toward Venus (on March 1, 1966, it becomes the first spacecraft to reach the surface of another planet).source
1965November 26 – At the Hammaguir launch facility in the Sahara Desert, France launches a Diamant A rocket with its first satellite, Astérix-1 on board, becoming the third country to enter outer space.source
1965November 29 – The Canadian satellite Alouette 2 is launched.source
1965December 15 – Gemini 6 and Gemini 7 perform the first controlled rendezvous in Earth orbit.source
1965December 21 – The Soviet Union announces that it has shipped rockets to North Vietnam.source
1965December 21 – The United Nations adopts the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.source
196613 January - Archipiélago de Juan Fernández National Park receive new names: Robinson Crusoe (formerly Mas a Tierra) and Alexander Selkirk (formerly Más Afuera)Chile source
1966February 3 – The unmanned Soviet Luna 9 spacecraft makes the first controlled rocket-assisted landing on the Moon.source
1966March 1 – Soviet space probe Venera 3 crashes on Venus, becoming the first spacecraft to land on another planet's surface.source
1966March 15 – The decennial census is held in Romania, and counted the population of Romania on that date.Romania source
1966March 16 – NASA spacecraft Gemini 8 (David Scott, Neil Armstrong) conducts the first docking in space, with an Agena target vehicle.source
1966March 31 – The Soviet Union launches Luna 10, which becomes the first space probe to enter orbit around the Moon.source
1966April 3 – Luna 10 is the first manmade object to enter lunar orbit.source
1966April 30 – Regular hovercraft service begins over the English Channel (discontinued in 2000).source
1966May 4 – May 1966 lunar eclipse: A penumbral lunar eclipse takes place, the 64th lunar eclipse of Lunar Saros 111.source
1966May 25 – Explorer program: Satellite Explorer 32 (Atmosphere Explorer-B) is launched from the United States.source
1966May 28 – Boat ride It's a Small World opens at Disneyland.source
1966June 2 – Surveyor program: Surveyor 1 lands in Oceanus Procellarum on the Moon, becoming the first U.S. spacecraft to soft-land on another world.source
1966June 5 – Gemini 9A: Gene Cernan completes the second U.S. spacewalk (2 hours, 7 minutes).source
196612 July – Indira Gandhi visits Moscow.India source
1966July 18 – Gemini 10 (John Young, Michael Collins) is launched from the United States. After docking with an Agena target vehicle, the astronauts set a world altitude record of 474 miles (763 km).source
1966July 24 – U.N. Secretary General U Thant visits Moscow.source
1966August 2 – Tallinn Old Town Conservation Area was established.Estonia source
1966August 10 – Lunar Orbiter 1, the first U.S. spacecraft to orbit the Moon, is launched.source
196616 August – The Iraqi fighter pilot Munir Redfa defects to Israel by flying a MiG-21 of the Iraqi Air Force to Israel. The MiG-21 fighter is evaluated by the Israeli Air Force. Knowledge obtained from analysis of the aircraft was instrumental to the successes achieved by the Israeli Air Force in its future encounters with Arab MiG-21s.Israel source
1966September 12 – Gemini 11 (Charles "Pete" Conrad Jr., Richard F. Gordon Jr) is launched from the United States. The crew performed the first direct-ascent (first orbit) rendezvous with an Agena Target Vehicle, docking with it.source
1966November 6 – Lunar Orbiter 2 is launched.source
1966November 12 – A total solar eclipse occurs, the 20th solar eclipse of Solar Saros 142.source
1966November 15 - Gemini 12 (James A. Lovell, Buzz Aldrin) splashes down safely in the Atlantic Ocean, 600 km east of the Bahamas.source
1966November 17 – A spectacular Leonid meteor shower passes over Arizona, at the rate of 2,300 a minute for 20 minutes.source
19669 December – Australia negotiates an agreement for an American spy satellite base to be established at Pine Gap in the Northern Territory, with federal minister for external affairs Paul Hasluck signing a treaty with the United States chargé d'affaires.Australia source
1966Long-term potentiation (LTP), the putative cellular mechanism of learning and memory, is first observed by Terje Lømo in Oslo, Norway.source
1966James K. Baxter wins the Robert Burns Fellowship.New Zealand source
1967January 15 – Louis Leakey announces the discovery of pre-human fossils in Kenya; he names the species Kenyapithecus africanus.source
1967February 5 – Italy's first guided missile cruiser, the Vittorio Veneto, is launched.source
1967February 5 – NASA launches Lunar Orbiter 3.source
1967February 11 – Burgess Ice Rise, lying off the west coast of Alexander Island, Antarctica, is first mapped by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS).source
1967February 13 – American researchers discover the Madrid Codices by Leonardo da Vinci in the National Library of Spain.source
196715 February – Rasmus Sørnes, inventor, clockmaker and radio technician (b.1893).Norway source
1967February 25 – Britain's second Polaris missile submarine, HMS Renown, is launched.source
1967February 26 – A Soviet nuclear test is conducted at the Semipalatinsk Test Site, Eastern Kazakhstan.source
1967March 29 – The first French nuclear submarine, Le Redoutable, is launched.source
19675 April – An emperor penguin is found at Oreti Beach, Southland, becoming the first recorded sighting of an emperor penguin in New Zealand. The following day, it is released into Foveaux Strait.New Zealand source
1967April 20 – The Surveyor 3 probe lands on the Moon.source
1967April 27: Expo 67 Official Opening Ceremony broadcast in colour live via satellite to an estimated worldwide audience of 700 million viewers and listeners.Canada source
1967April 29 – Fidel Castro announces that all intellectual property belongs to the people and that Cuba intends to translate and publish technical literature without compensation.source
1967May 4 – Lunar Orbiter 4 is launched by the United States.source
1967May 18 – NASA announces the crew for the Apollo 7 space mission (the first in the Apollo series with a crew): Wally Schirra, Donn F. Eisele, and R. Walter Cunningham.source
1967June 12 – Venera program: Venera 4 is launched by the Soviet Union (the first space probe to analyze another planet's atmosphere and successfully return data).source
1967June 14 – Mariner program: Mariner 5 is launched toward Venus.source
1967June 14–15 – Glenn Gould records Prokofiev's Seventh Piano Sonata, Op. 83, in New York City (his only recording of a Prokofiev composition).United States source
1967June 25 – 400 million viewers watch Our World, the first live, international, satellite television production. It features the live debut of The Beatles' song "All You Need Is Love".source
196728 June – Judy Pollock breaks Ann Packer's world record (2:04.3) in the women's 800 metres, clocking 2:01.0 at a meet in Helsinki, Finland.Australia source
1967The first edition of Paula magazine appears. The first issue is one hundred pages long and costs E°3.Chile source
1967October 18 – The Venera 4 probe descends through the Venusian atmosphere.source
1967October 19 – The Mariner 5 probe flies by Venus.source
1967October 20 – Patterson–Gimlin film: Roger Patterson and Robert Gimlin's famous film of an unidentified animate cryptid, thought to be Bigfoot or Sasquatch, is recorded at Bluff Creek, California.source
1967November 9 – Apollo program: NASA launches the first Saturn V rocket, successfully carrying the Apollo 4 test spacecraft from Cape Kennedy into Earth orbit.source
1967November 13 – The first of its many UFO sightings is made at Pudasjärvi, Finland.source
1967November 28 – The first pulsar to be discovered by Earth observers is found in the constellation of Vulpecula by astronomers Jocelyn Bell Burnell and Antony Hewish, and is given the name PSR B1919+21.source
1967December 11 – Supersonic airliner Concorde is unveiled in Toulouse, France.source
196711 December – The Concorde aircraft is unveiled in Toulouse.France source
1967December 19 – The Rescue Agreement setting forth rights and obligations in outer space is voted into consensus by the United Nations General Assembly.source
1967December 26 – The Beatles' film Magical Mystery Tour receives its world première on BBC Television in the UK.source
1967Rhys Davies wins an Edgar Allan Poe Award for his story "The Chosen One", originally published in The New Yorker.Wales source
1968April 4 – Apollo program: Apollo-Saturn mission 502 (Apollo 6) is launched, as the second and last uncrewed test-flight of the Saturn V launch vehicle.source
1968April – Ronquières inclined plane taken into useBelgium source
196813 July: Martha Vasconcellos becomes the second Brazilian to win the Miss Universe title, in the pageant held in Miami Beach, Florida, United States.Brazil source
1968September 21 – The Soviet Zond 5 uncrewed lunar flyby mission returns to Earth, with its first-of-a-kind biological payload intact.source
1968October 11 – Apollo program: NASA launches Apollo 7, the first crewed Apollo mission (Wally Schirra, Donn Eisele, Walter Cunningham). Mission goals include the first live television broadcast from orbit and simulating lunar module rendezvous and docking, using the S-IVB rocket stage as a test target.source
1968October 18 – U.S. athlete Bob Beamon breaks the long jump world record by 55 cm / 213/4 ins at the Olympics in Mexico City. His record stands for 23 years, and remains the second longest jump in history.source
19681 November – The airline Ansett-ANA is renamed Ansett.Australia source
19686 December – Karl Ove Knausgård, authorNorway source
1968December 24 – Apollo program: The crewed U.S. spacecraft Apollo 8 enters orbit around the Moon. Astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and William Anders become the first humans to see the far side of the Moon and planet Earth as a whole, as well as having traveled further away from Earth than any people in history. Anders photographs Earthrise. The crew also give a reading from the Book of Genesis.source
1968David Suzuki wins UNESCO's Kalinga Prize for science writingCanada source
19681st number of Estonian Soviet Encyclopedia was published.Estonia source
1968Three-language formula introduced through National Policy on EducationIndia source
1968New Zealand sends a team of 52 competitors.New Zealand source
1969January 16 – First successful docking of two crewed spacecraft in orbit and the first transfer of crew from one space vehicle to another (by a space walk) between Soviet craft Soyuz 5 and Soyuz 4.source
1969January 18 – Failure of Soyuz 5's service module to separate correctly causes a near-fatal re-entry (not publicly acknowledged until 1997) but the module makes a hard landing in the Ural Mountains.source
196922 February - Germany in the Eurovision Song Contest 1969Germany source
1969February 24 – The Mariner 6 Mars probe is launched from the United States.source
1969March 3 – Apollo program: NASA launches Apollo 9 (James McDivitt, Rusty Schweickart, David Scott) to test the lunar module.source
1969March 13 – Apollo program: Apollo 9 returns safely to Earth after testing the Lunar Module.source
1969March 18 – An annular solar eclipse is visible in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, and is the 49th solar eclipse of Solar Saros 129.source
196926 March – The Sentosa Satellite Earth Station is announced, which will take a year to set up.Singapore source
1969May 16 – Venera program: Soviet space probe Venera 5 lands on Venus.source
1969May 17 – Venera program: Soviet space probe Venera 6 begins to descend into Venus's atmosphere, sending back atmospheric data before being crushed by pressure.source
1969May 18 – Apollo program: Apollo 10 (Gene Cernan, Tom Stafford, John Young) is launched. It is to be a full rehearsal for the Moon landing, stopping 15 kilometers short of actually reaching the lunar surface.source
1969May 22 – Apollo program: Apollo 10's lunar module flies to within 15,400 m of the Moon's surface.source
1969May 26 – Apollo program: Apollo 10 returns to Earth, after a successful 8-day test of all the components needed for the upcoming first crewed Moon landing.source
1969July 16 – Apollo program: Apollo 11 (Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins) lifts off from Cape Kennedy in Florida towards the first crewed landing on the Moon.source
1969July 20 – Apollo program Moon landing: At 3:17 pm ET (20:17 UTC) Apollo 11's Lunar Module Eagle lands on the Moon's surface. At 10:56 pm ET (02:56 UTC July 21), an estimated 650 million people worldwide, the largest television audience for a live broadcast at this time, watch in awe as Neil Armstrong takes his first historic steps on the surface.source
1969July 24 – The Soviet Union returns British lecturer Gerald Brooke to the United Kingdom freed from a Soviet prison in exchange for their spies Peter and Helen Kroger (Morris and Lona Cohen).source
1969July 24 – Apollo program: Apollo 11 returns from the first successful Moon landing and the astronauts are placed in biological isolation for several days in case they may have brought back lunar germs. The airless lunar environment is later determined to rule out microscopic life.source
1969August 5 – Mariner program: Mariner 7 makes its closest fly-by of Mars (3,524 km).source
19692 September – Amos de-Shalit (born 1926), Israeli nuclear physicist.Israel source
1969September 11 – An annular solar eclipse is visible in Pacific Ocean and South America, and is the 41st solar eclipse of Solar Saros 134.source
1969September 23 – China carries out an underground nuclear bomb test.source
196926 September – The Poseidon bubble begins when the small mining company Poseidon NL discovers a large nickel deposit in Laverton, Western Australia.Australia source
1969October 1 - The National Space Development Agency of Japan is established.Japan source
1969October 17 – Willard S. Boyle and George Smith invent the CCD at Bell Laboratories (30 years later, this technology is widely used in digital cameras).source
1969November 14 – Apollo program: NASA launches Apollo 12 (Pete Conrad, Richard Gordon, Alan Bean), the second crewed mission to the Moon.source
196917 November – RTM2 was launched from Angkasapuri, Kuala lumpur.Malaysia source
1969November 19 – Professional footballer Pelé scores his 1,000th goal.source
1969November 19 – Apollo program: Apollo 12 astronauts Charles Conrad and Alan Bean land at Oceanus Procellarum ("Ocean of Storms"), becoming the third and fourth humans to walk on the Moon.source
196922 November – A Luxair flight from Frankfurt hits a snowback upon touchdown at Luxembourg-Findel. No-one is killed, but the plane is written off.Luxembourg source
1969November 24 – Apollo program: The Apollo 12 spacecraft splashes down safely in the Pacific Ocean, ending the second crewed mission to the Moon.source
1969December 2 – The Boeing 747 jumbo jet makes its first passenger flight. It carries 191 people, most of them reporters and photographers, from Seattle to New York City.source
1969Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) was set upIndia source
1970February 11 – Ohsumi, Japan's first satellite, is launched on a Lambda-4 rocket.source
197016 February – Germany in the Eurovision Song Contest 1970Germany source
197017 February – Shmuel Yosef Agnon (born 1888), Austro-Hungarian (Galicia)-born Israeli author and Nobel Prize laureate.Israel source
1970March 7 - A total solar eclipse affects the MaritimesCanada source
1970March 31 – NASA's Explorer 1, the first American satellite and Explorer program spacecraft, reenters Earth's atmosphere after 12 years in orbit.source
19704 April – Malaysia's first satellite station was commissioned in Kuantan, Pahang.Malaysia source
1970April 11 – Apollo program: Apollo 13 (Jim Lovell, Fred Haise, Jack Swigert) is launched from the United States toward the Moon.source
1970April 13 – An oxygen tank in the Apollo 13 spacecraft explodes, forcing the crew to abort the mission and return in four days.source
1970April 15 - The Apollo 13 crew sets the record for the farthest humans have traveled, 400,171 mi, which would stand until the Artemis II lunar flyby in 2026.source
1970April 17 – Apollo 13 splashes down safely in the Pacific.source
1970April 24 – China's first satellite (Dong Fang Hong 1) is launched into orbit using a Long March-1 Rocket (CZ-1).source
1970April 24 – China launched its first space satellite Dong Fang Hong I as part of the PRC's Dong Fang Hong space satellite program.China source
1970May 26 – The Soviet Tupolev Tu-144 becomes the first commercial transport to exceed Mach 2.source
1970June 1 – Soyuz 9, a two-man spacecraft, is launched from the Soviet Union for an orbital flight of nearly 18 days, an endurance record at this time.source
1970August 17 – Venera program: Venera 7 is launched from the Soviet Union toward Venus. It later becomes the first spacecraft to transmit data from the surface of another planet successfully.source
1970August 31 – Solar eclipse of August 31, 1970: An annular solar eclipse is visible in Oceania, and is the 14th solar eclipse of Solar Saros 144.source
1970September 20 – Luna 16 lands on the Moon and lifts off the next day with samples, landing back on Earth September 24.source
1970October 3 – The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is formed in the United States and the Weather Bureau is renamed to National Weather Service as part of NOAA.source
1970October 8 – Soviet author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn is awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.Soviet Union source
1970October 20 – The Soviet Union launches the Zond 8 lunar probe.source
1970November 9 – The Soviet Union launches Luna 17 for the moon.source
1970November 17 – Luna programme: The Soviet Union lands Lunokhod 1 on Mare Imbrium (Sea of Rains) on the Moon. This is the first roving remote-controlled robot to land on another world, and is released by the orbiting Luna 17 spacecraft.source
1970December 2 – The United States Environmental Protection Agency is established.source
1970December 15 – The USSR's Venera 7 becomes the first spacecraft to land successfully on Venus and transmit data back to Earth.source
1970December 20 – An Egyptian delegation leaves for Moscow to ask for economic and military aid.source
1970The US yacht Intrepid defeats the Australian yacht Gretel II in the America's Cup.Australia source
1970Best Documentary: Three Score Years and ThenNew Zealand source
1971January 29 – The last of its many UFO sightings is made at Pudasjärvi, Finland.source
1971January 31 – Apollo program: Apollo 14 (carrying astronauts Alan Shepard, Stuart Roosa, and Edgar Mitchell) lifts off on the third successful lunar landing mission.source
1971February 5 – Apollo 14 lands on the Moon.source
1971February 9 – Apollo program: Apollo 14 returns to Earth after the third human Moon landing.source
1971February 10 – A total lunar eclipse is visible from Pacific, Americas, Europe and Africa, and is the 50th lunar eclipse of Lunar Saros 123.source
1971February 25 – A partial solar eclipse is visible from Europe, Africa and Asia, and is the 18th solar eclipse of Solar Saros 149.source
1971February 26 – Secretary General U Thant signs the United Nations proclamation of the March equinox (March 21) as Earth Day.source
1971February 28 – Evel Knievel sets a world record and jumps 19 cars on a motorbike in Ontario, California.source
19716 April – Mona Grudt, model and 1990 Miss UniverseNorway source
1971April 19 — The Soviet Union launches Salyut 1.Soviet Union source
1971May 19 – Mars probe program: Mars 2 is launched by the Soviet Union.source
1971May 30 – Mariner program: Mariner 9 is launched toward Mars.source
1971June 6 – Soyuz program: Soyuz 11 (Vladislav Volkov, Georgi Dobrovolski, Viktor Patsayev) is launched.source
1971June 10: Opening of the Metro Observatorio.Mexico source
1971June 11 – Jack Davis becomes Canada's first Minister of the Environment, heading the new department of Environment CanadaCanada source
1971June 30 – After a successful mission aboard Salyut 1, the world's first human-occupied space station, the crew of the Soyuz 11 spacecraft die after their air supply leaks out through a faulty valve.source
1971June – Massachusetts passes its Chapter 766 laws enacting special education.source
1971July 25–30 – Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli records two Debussy works in Munich for Deutsche Grammophon, his fifth recording.source
1971July 26 – Apollo 15 (carrying astronauts David Scott, Alfred Worden and James Irwin) is launched.source
1971July 29 – The United Kingdom opts out of the Space Race with the cancellation of its Black Arrow launch vehicle.source
1971July 31 – Apollo 15 astronauts David Scott and James Irwin become the first to ride in the Lunar Roving Vehicle, a day after landing on the Moon.source
1971August 6 – A total lunar eclipse lasting 1 hour, 40 minutes, and 4 seconds is observed, visible from South America, Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia, and is the 38th lunar eclipse of Lunar Saros 128.source
1971August 7 – Apollo 15 returns to Earth.source
1971August 20 – A partial solar eclipse is visible from Southern Ocean, and is the 4th solar eclipse of Solar Saros 154.source
1971October 1 – Walt Disney World opens in Orlando, Florida.source
1971October 21 - Pablo Neruda receives the nobel prize for literature.Chile source
197123 October – The Sentosa Satellite Earth Station is officially launched, making it Singapore's first Satellite Earth Station.Singapore source
1971October 28 – The United Kingdom becomes the sixth nation successfully to launch a satellite into orbit using its own launch vehicle, the Prospero (X-3) experimental communications satellite, using a Black Arrow carrier rocket from Woomera, South Australia.source
1971November 6 – Operation Grommet: The U.S. tests a thermonuclear warhead at Amchitka Island in Alaska, code-named Project Cannikin. At around 5 megatons, it is the largest ever U.S. underground detonation.source
1971November 13 – Mariner program: Mariner 9 becomes the first spacecraft to enter Mars orbit successfully.source
1971December 2 – The Soviet Mars 3 lander reaches the surface of Mars, transmits for a few seconds and then goes silent. It is the first spacecraft to reach the planet.source
1971Hillel Oppenheimer (born 1899), German-born Israeli professor of botany.Israel source
1971In 1971 there was a major breakthrough for international news when the Warkworth Satellite station was opened.New Zealand source
1972January 4 – The first scientific hand-held calculator (HP-35) is introduced (price $395).source
1972January 20 – President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto publicly announces that Pakistan will immediately developed its own nuclear deterrence to prevent further intervention from India.Pakistan source
1972February 4 – Mariner 9 sends pictures as it orbits Mars.source
197219 February – Germany in the Eurovision Song Contest 1972Germany source
1972February 21 – The Soviet uncrewed spaceship Luna 20 lands on the Moon.source
1972March 2 – The Pioneer 10 spacecraft is launched from Cape Kennedy, to be the first man-made spacecraft to leave the Solar System.source
1972March 14 – It is denounced in Session No. 67 of the Senate that 10 Soviet ships are authorized by President Salvador Allende to carry out "scientific research actions".Chile source
1972March 27 – The Soviet Union launches Venera 8, which will make the first soft landing on Venus.source
197212 April – Carmen Amelia Ampuero is selected as Miss Peru Universe 1972.Peru source
1972April 16 – Apollo 16 (John Young, Ken Mattingly, Charlie Duke) is launched. During the mission, the astronauts, driving the Lunar Roving Vehicle, achieve a lunar rover speed record of 17 km/h.source
1972June 8 – Seven men and three women hijack a plane from Czechoslovakia to West Germany.source
1972July 11 – Curtis Mayfield releases the soundtrack to the 1972 film, Super Fly.source
1972July 22 - The Soviet probe Venera 8 lands on the surface of Venus and transmits data for 50 minutes about the planet's surface temperature and atmospheric pressure.source
1972July 23 – The United States launches Landsat 1, the first Earth-resources satellite.source
197229 July – Kerry Anne Wells earned Australia's first Miss Universe crown, in Dorado, Puerto Rico.Australia source
1972August 10 – 1972 Great Daylight Fireball: A brilliant meteor is seen in the western U.S. and Canada as an Apollo asteroid skips off the Earth's atmosphere.source
197215 August - Postal Index Number (PIN Code) introduced in India.India source
19726 September – David Mark Berger (born 1944), U.S.-born Israeli weightlifter.Israel source
1972October 1 – The first publication reporting the production of a recombinant DNA molecule, by Paul Berg and colleagues, marks the birth of modern molecular biology methodology.source
1972October 25 – Belgian Eddy Merckx sets a new world hour record in cycling in Mexico City.source
1972December 7 – Apollo 17 (Gene Cernan, Ronald Evans, Harrison Schmitt), the last crewed mission beyond low Earth orbit until the Artemis II lunar flyby in 2026, is launched to the Moon and The Blue Marble photograph of the Earth is taken. The mission also includes five mice.source
1972December 11 – Apollo 17 lands on the Moon.source
1972December 14 – Apollo program: Eugene Cernan becomes the last person to walk on the Moon until 2028 at the earliest, after he and Harrison Schmitt complete the third and final extra-vehicular activity (EVA) of Apollo 17.source
1972December 15 – The United Nations Environment Programme is established as a specialized agency of the United Nations.source
1972December 19 – Apollo program: Apollo 17 returns to Earth, concluding the program of lunar exploration.source
1972Loxene Golden Disc Creation – CarolinaNew Zealand source
19731 January – The 1973 New Year Honours are announcedNew Zealand source
1973February 12 – Ohio becomes the first U.S. state to post road distance signs in metric (see Metric system in the United States).United States source
197321 February – Germany in the Eurovision Song Contest 1973Germany source
1973March 18 – Comet Kohoutek is discovered.source
1973April 4 — The original World Trade Center is officially dedicated.source
1973April 5 – Pioneer 11 is launched on a mission to study the Solar System.source
1973April 13 - The ship Sierra Maestra from Cuba arrives at Talcahuano with 11,400 tons of sugar.Chile source
1973April 20 - Anik A2 is launched.Canada source
1973May 14 – Skylab, the United States' first space station, is launched.source
1973May 25 – Skylab 2 (Pete Conrad, Paul Weitz, Joseph Kerwin) is launched on a mission to repair damage to the recently launched Skylab space station.source
1973June 30 – A very long total solar eclipse occurs. During the entire second millennium, only seven total solar eclipses exceeded seven minutes of totality.source
1973July 25 – The Soviet Mars 5 space probe is launched.source
1973July 28 – Skylab 3 (Owen Garriott, Jack Lousma, Alan Bean) is launched, to conduct various medical and scientific experiments aboard Skylab.source
1973August 5 – Mars 6, also known as 3MP No. 50P, is launched by the Soviet Union to explore Mars.source
1973September 27 – Soviet space program: Soyuz 12 (Vasily Lazarev, Oleg Makarov), the first Soviet crewed flight since the Soyuz 11 tragedy in 1971, is launched.source
197317 October – Bernt Balchen, polar and aviation pioneer in America (born 1899).Norway source
1973November 3 – Mariner program: NASA launches Mariner 10 toward Mercury (on March 29, 1974, it becomes the first space probe to reach that planet).source
1973November 16 – Skylab program: NASA launches Skylab 4 (Gerald Carr, William Pogue, Edward Gibson) from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on an 84-day mission.source
1973December 3 – Pioneer program: Pioneer 10 sends back the first close-up images of Jupiter.source
1973December 18 – Soviet space program: Soyuz 13 (Pyotr Klimuk, Valentin Lebedev) is launched.source
1973Los caballeros de la cama redonda, directed by Gerardo SofovichArgentina source
1973Elo Hansen and Ulla Strand win gold in mixed doublesDenmark source
1974February 8 – After a record 84 days in orbit, the crew of Skylab 4 returns to Earth.source
197426 February – Mungo Man, a human skeleton estimated to be 40,000 years old, uncovered at Lake MungoAustralia source
1974June 15 - Decree Law 512 formally establishes the Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA).Chile source
197417 August – A second Satellite Earth Station with an antenna is launched at the Sentosa Satellite Earth Station.Singapore source
1974November 16 – Arecibo message: The radio telescope at the Arecibo Observatory on Puerto Rico sends an interstellar radio message towards Messier 13, the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules. The message will reach its destination around the year 27,000.source
1974November 18 – The International Energy Agency is founded.source
1974November 22 – The United Nations General Assembly grants the Palestine Liberation Organization observer status.source
1974November 24 – A skeleton from the hominid species Australopithecus afarensis is discovered and named Lucy.source
1974December 17 – The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) becomes a specialized agency of the United Nations.source
197431 December – Sverre Petterssen, meteorologist (b.1898)Norway source
1974Skittles was created and released by a British company in the United Kingdom.source
1974Rubik's Cube puzzle is invented by Hungarian architecture professor Ernő Rubik.source
1974Alice Munro – Something I've Been Meaning to Tell YouCanada source
1974Orlanda Amarílis' short story book Cais-do-Sodré té Salamansa was publishedCape Verde source
1974Robalan defeats hot favourite Young Quinn to win the New Zealand Trotting CupNew Zealand source
1974Eyvind Johnson and Harry Martinson are awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. The two laureates were members of the Swedish Academy at the time; the decision was criticized by the media, and Martinson committed suicide in 1978.Sweden source
1975January 2 – The Federal Rules of Evidence are approved by the United States Congress.source
1975April 5 – The Soviet crewed space mission (Soyuz 18a) ends in failure during its ascent into orbit when a critical malfunction occurs in the second and third stages of the booster rocket during staging at an altitude of 192 km, resulting in the cosmonauts and their Soyuz spacecraft having to be ripped free from the vehicle. Both cosmonauts (Vasily Lazarev and Oleg Makarov) survive.source
197519 April – The first Indian satellite, Aryabhata, goes into Earth's orbit.India source
1975May 25 – Bobby Unser wins the Indianapolis 500 for a second time in a rain-shorted 174 lap, 700 km race.source
1975July 17 – Apollo–Soyuz Test Project: A crewed American Apollo spacecraft and the crewed Soviet Soyuz spacecraft for the Soyuz 19 mission dock in orbit, marking the first such link-up between spacecraft from the 2 nations.source
1975August 20 – Viking program: NASA launches the Viking 1 planetary probe toward Mars.source
197525 September – Yehoshua Bar-Hillel (born 1915), Austrian-born Israeli philosopher, mathematician, and linguist.Israel source
1975September 30 – (US time) Home Box Office becomes the first pay television network to deliver a continuous signal via satellite by broadcasting the "Thrilla in Manila" boxing match live.source
197517 October – Swiss chemist of Croatian origin Vladimir Prelog receives the Nobel Prize in ChemistrySwitzerland source
1975Benoit Mandelbrot coins the mathematical term fractal.source
1975Dersu Uzala, directed by Akira KurosawaJapan source
1975Publication of the Green Book, detailing the Third International TheoryLibya source
1975William Peskett's poems The Nightowl's Dissection are published.Northern Ireland source
1975The Centro de Investigaciones de Astronomia is founded in honour of Francisco J. Duarte, who died in 1972.Venezuela source
197612 January – Nobel Prize winning chemist John Cornforth is proclaimed as the Australian of the Year for 1975.Australia source
1976February 1 – Germany in the Eurovision Song Contest 1976Germany source
1976April 1 – The Jovian–Plutonian gravitational effect is first reported by British astronomer Patrick Moore.source
197625 April – Markus Reiner (born 1886), Austro-Hungarian (Bukovina)-born Israeli scientist.Israel source
1976April 25: Aquiles Nazoa (born 1920) — writer, journalist and humorist.Venezuela source
1976May 4 – The first LAGEOS (Laser Geodynamics Satellite) is launched.source
1976May 13 – The Atari video arcade game Breakout is released.source
197631 May – Roar Ljøkelsøy, ski jumper.Norway source
1976July 20 – Viking program: The Viking 1 lander successfully lands on Mars.source
1976July 31 – NASA releases the famous Face on Mars photo, taken by Viking 1.source
1976August 7 – Viking program: Viking 2 enters into orbit around Mars.source
1976September 3 – Viking program: The Viking 2 spacecraft lands at Utopia Planitia on Mars, taking the first close-up color photographs of the planet's surface.source
1976September 17 – The space shuttle Enterprise is rolled out of a hangar in Palmdale, California, United States.source
1976October 19 – The Copyright Act of 1976 extends copyright duration for an additional 19 years in the United States.source
1976Astro Tower, Brussels, completed.Belgium source
1976Joy Fielding: The TransformationCanada source
1976New Zealand sends a team of 80 competitors.New Zealand source
1977February 7 – The Soviet Union launches Soyuz 24 (Viktor Gorbatko, Yury Glazkov) to dock with the Salyut 5 space station.source
1977February 18 – American Space Shuttle program: First test flight of Space Shuttle Enterprise mated to the Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft.source
19773 March – Nehru Planetarium commissioned.India source
1977March 10 – The rings of Uranus are discovered.source
1977April 18 – An annular solar eclipse was visible in Africa, and was the 29th solar eclipse of Solar Saros 138.source
1977May 23 – Scientists report using bacteria in a lab to make insulin via gene splicing.source
1977May 25 - Star Wars is released in the United States by director George Lucas, It immediately became a major pop culture phenomenon, and became a major box office hit for the next 6 years.source
197713 June – The first double-decker bus is launched on service 86 by Singapore Bus Service (now SBS Transit).Singapore source
1977August 12 – The NASA Space Shuttle, named Enterprise, makes its first test free-flight from the back of a Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft.source
1977August 15 – The Big Ear, a radio telescope operated by Ohio State University as part of the SETI project, receives a radio signal from deep space; the event is named the Wow! signal for a notation made by a volunteer on the project.source
1977August 17 – The Soviet icebreaker Arktika becomes the first surface ship to reach the North Pole.source
1977August 17 — Arktika, a Soviet nuclear-powered icebreaker, became the first surface ship to reach the North Pole.Soviet Union source
1977August 20 – Voyager program: The United States launches the Voyager 2 spacecraft.source
1977A Soviet surveillance satellite detects South Africa's nuclear test preparations and alerts the United States.South Africa source
1977September 5 – Voyager program: Voyager 1 is launched after a brief delay.source
1977October 1 – Energy Research and Development Administration combines with the Federal Energy Administration to form United States Department of Energy.source
1977October 1: Pelé, playing for the New York Cosmos, scores his last goal to defeat Santos FC 2-1, at Giants Stadium, in East Rutherford, New Jersey, United States. This would be his last official game, thus saying goodbye to his professional football career.Brazil source
1977October 7 – Pelé plays his final professional football game, as a member of the New York Cosmos.source
197711 October – Award of Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Ilya Prigogine announced.Belgium source
1977October 26 – Space Shuttle program: Last test taxi flight of Space Shuttle Enterprise, over California.source
1977November 1 – 2060 Chiron, first of the outer Solar System asteroids known as Centaurs, is discovered by Charlie Kowal.source
197729 December – Kialoa II wins the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race.Australia source
1977At the conference of the International Telecommunication Union, in Geneva, Luxembourg is assigned five frequencies for satellite broadcasting, furthering the government's move towards making Luxembourg a leader in satellite telecommunications.Luxembourg source
1978January 24 – Soviet satellite Kosmos 954 burns up in Earth's atmosphere, scattering radioactive debris over Canada's Northwest Territories.source
197824 January – The Kosmos 954 ends its missionSoviet Union source
197820 February - Germany in the Eurovision Song Contest 1978Germany source
1978February 27 – The first global positioning satellite, the Rockwell International-built Navstar 1, is launched by the United States.source
1978March 2 – Soyuz 28 (Aleksei Gubarev, Vladimír Remek) is launched on a rendezvous with Salyut 6, with the first cosmonaut from a country other than the US or USSR (Czechoslovak Vladimír Remek).source
1978March 3 – The New York Post publishes an article about David Rorvik's book The Cloning of Man, about a supposed cloning of a human being.source
1978April 6 – Sunshine 60 has officially open in Ikebukuro, Toshima, Tokyo, the tallest skyscraper in Asia (Japan), until 63 Building in Seoul, South Korea on July 27, 1985.Japan source
1978April 22 – Izhar Cohen & the Alphabeta win the Eurovision Song Contest 1978 for Israel with their song A-Ba-Ni-Bi.source
197822 April – Izhar Cohen and the Alphabeta win the Eurovision Song Contest for Israel with the song "A-Ba-Ni-Bi".Israel source
197811 June – Belgium's Ludo Peeters wins the 1978 Tour de Luxembourg.Luxembourg source
197819 June – Ian Botham takes 8-34 vs. Pakistan, his best Test cricket bowling.Pakistan source
1978June 21 – 1978 Iranian Chinook shootdown: Iranian helicopters stray into Soviet airspace and are shot down.source
1978June 22 – Charon, a satellite of Pluto, is discovered.source
1978August 17 – Double Eagle II becomes the first balloon to successfully cross the Atlantic Ocean, flying from Presque Isle, Maine, to Miserey, France.source
1978October 10 – A massive short circuit in Seasat's electrical system ends the satellite's scientific mission.source
197811 December – Ahmet Enünlü wins gold in Mr. Universe bodybuilding competition.Turkey source
19788–9 December – 1978 Chilean telethonChile source
1978Myriodontium keratinophilum is first isolated in Italy during the screening of soil microbes.source
1979January - The One Child Policy is announced and implemented (est.)China source
1979January - Go-slow at Subang Airport.Malaysia source
1979February 7 – Pluto moves inside Neptune's orbit for the first time since either was known to science.source
1979February 26 – A total solar eclipse, the last visible from the continental United States until 2017, arcs over northwestern conterminous US and central Canada ending in Greenland. A partial solar eclipse is visible over almost all of North America and Central America including the eastern half of Alaska and the western half of the UK.source
1979March 4 – The U.S. Voyager 1 spaceprobe photos reveal Jupiter's rings.source
1979March 5 – Voyager 1 makes its closest approach to Jupiter at 277,000 km.source
1979March 7 – The largest Magnetar (Soft gamma repeater) event is recorded.source
1979March 25 – The first fully functional Space Shuttle orbiter, Columbia, is delivered to the Kennedy Space Center, to be prepared for its first launch.source
197931 March – Representing Luxembourg, Jeane Manson finishes thirteenth in the Eurovision Song Contest 1979 with the song J'ai déjà vu ça dans tes yeux.Luxembourg source
1979April 22 – The Albert Einstein Memorial is unveiled at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C.source
1979June 12 – Bryan Allen flies the man-powered Gossamer Albatross across the English Channel.source
1979June 15 – The ecological horror-thriller Prophecy is released in the United States by Paramount Pictures.source
1979July 11 – NASA's first orbiting space station, Skylab, begins falling back Earth as its orbit decays after more than six years.source
1979September 1 – The U.S. Pioneer 11 becomes the first spacecraft to visit Saturn when it passes the planet at a distance of 21,000 km.source
1979September 3 - Aeroflot Flight A-513Soviet Union source
1979November 9 – Nuclear false alarm: the NORAD computers and the Alternate National Military Command Center in Fort Ritchie, Maryland, detect an apparent massive Soviet nuclear strike. After reviewing the raw data from satellites and checking the early-warning radars, the alert is cancelled.source
197930 November-1 December – 1979 Chilean telethonChile source
1979December 24 – The first European Ariane rocket is launched.source
1979Full date unknown – Abraham Schalit (born 1898), Austro-Hungarian (Galicia)-born Israeli historian.Israel source
19791979 Summer Universiade in Mexico City.Mexico source
1979Singapore becomes the world's second busiest port in terms of shipping tonnage.Singapore source
1980January 27 – Canadian Caper: Six United States diplomats, posing as Canadians, manage to escape from Tehran, Iran, as they board a flight to Zürich, Switzerland, on Swissair.source
1980February 16 – A total solar eclipse is seen in North Africa and West Asia. It was the 50th solar eclipse of Solar Saros 130.source
1980March 1 – The Voyager 1 probe confirms the existence of Janus, a moon of Saturn.source
198019 April – Norway was represented by Sverre Kjelsberg and Mattis Hætta, with the song '"Sámiid Ædnan", at the 1980 Eurovision Song Contest.Norway source
19801 May – The Australian branch of Earthwatch Institute is established in Sydney.Australia source
1980May 22 – Namco's Pac-Man, the highest-earning arcade game of all time, is released in Japan.source
198016 June – Jacob Talmon (born 1916), Russian (Poland)-born Israeli author and professor of modern history.Israel source
198018 July - SLV-3 successfully launched from Sriharikota.India source
1980October 16 – The most recent atmospheric nuclear weapons test to date was conducted by China.source
1980October 28 – The National Energy Program is introducedCanada source
1980November 10–12 – Voyager program: The NASA space probe Voyager I makes its closest approach to Saturn, when it flies within 77,000 mi of the planet's cloud-tops and sends the first high-resolution images of the world back to scientists on Earth.source
1980November 10 – November 12 – Voyager program: The NASA space probe Voyager I makes its closest approach to Saturn, when it flies within 77,000 mi of the planet's cloud-tops and sends the first high resolution images of the world back to scientists on Earth.United States source
1980The Centro de Investigación en Matemáticas is established.Mexico source
1980Best Speciality: 1979 SPT International Track SeriesNew Zealand source
198111 February – Franz Sondheimer (born 1926), German-born Israeli-British chemist.Israel source
198130 March – The Canberra Raiders are accepted as the fourteenth team in the New South Wales Rugby League (NSWRL) for 1982 & making them the first team based outside of New South Wales.Australia source
1981April 12 – The Space Shuttle program: Space Shuttle Columbia, with NASA astronauts John Young and Robert Crippen, launches on the STS-1 mission, returning to Earth on April 14. It is the first time a crewed reusable spacecraft has returned from orbit.source
198122 May – Reimar Riefling, classical pianist, music teacher, and music critic (born 1898)Norway source
1981June 12 – Raiders of the Lost Ark, directed by Steven Spielberg is released as the first film of the Indiana Jones film series.United States source
1981June 27 – The E-mu Emulator sampler keyboard with floppy disk operation is unveiled at NAMM international Sound & Music Expo, Chicago. Production Model Serial Number 001 is issued to Stevie Wonder.source
198113 July – The South African rugby union team ("Springboks") arrives in New Zealand to begin the 1981 Springbok TourNew Zealand source
1981July 17 – The government of British Columbia name a 2,639 m peak in the Rocky Mountains after Terry Fox.Canada source
19811 August — Launch of the MK2 Volkswagen Polo, which makes use of a larger estate-like bodyshell, although it is still marketed as a hatchback.Germany source
1981August 27 – North Korea fires a surface-to-air missile at a U.S. SR-71 Blackbird spy plane flying in South Korean and international airspace. The missile misses and the airplane is unharmed.source
1981October 10 – The Ministry for Education of Japan issues the jōyō kanji.source
1981October 10 - Ministry of Education issues jōyō kanji.Japan source
1981October 30 – Venera program: Venera 13 is launched to Venus.source
1981November 4 – Venera program: Venera 14 is launched to Venus.source
1981November 22 – The Edmonton Eskimos (14–1–1) barely stave off defeat and win a record 4th consecutive Grey Cup in the Canadian Football League, at the 69th Grey Cup at Montreal's Olympic Stadium, defeating the Ottawa Rough Riders (5–11–0) with a score of 26–23 in the final three seconds, after being down 20–1 at halftime.source
1981Polybius, an urban legend game, is said to have been released in Portland, Oregon; there is no evidence for its existence.source
19821 January – The metric system of weights and measurements was introduced to replace the British imperial systems.Malaysia source
19822 January – The metric system of weights and measures is introduced, replacing the Imperial units.Singapore source
198223 January – Niki Lauda returns to Formula One competition after an absence of two years to partner John Watson at McLaren.Austria source
1982March 10 – Syzygy: All 9 planets recognized at this time align on the same side of the Sun.source
1982June 11 – E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial is released in the United States; directed by Steven Spielberg, this will become the biggest box-office hit for the next 11 years.source
198226 June - Bangladesh adopts standards of weights and measures based on metric system.Bangladesh source
1982July 6 – A lunar eclipse (umbral duration 236 min and total duration 106 min, the longest of the 20th century) occurs.source
1982September 13 - Don Muang security guards discover a time bomb within the departure lounge. The bomb failed to explode.Thailand source
1982September 19 – The first emoticons are posted by Scott Fahlman.source
1982Ciabatta bread is invented by a baker in Verona, Italy.source
1982Germano Almeida's book O dia das calças roladas publishedCape Verde source
1982Northern Ireland 0-0 YugoslaviaNorthern Ireland source
1982Lucía represents Spain at the Eurovision Song Contest, with the song "Él". She finishes 10th out of 18 entries.Spain source
1983January 25 – IRAS is launched from Vandenberg AFB, to conduct the world's first all-sky infrared survey from space.source
1983April 4 – The Space Shuttle Challenger is launched on its maiden voyage: STS-6.source
198311 April – News of "spy flights" by Royal Australian Air Force aircraft over Tasmania under orders from Minister Gareth Evans sparks outrage.Australia source
198316 April – Michael Zohary (born 1898), Austro-Hungary (Galicia)-born Israeli botanist.Israel source
1983April 25 – Manchester, Maine schoolgirl Samantha Smith is invited to visit the Soviet Union by its leader Yuri Andropov, after he read her letter in which she expressed fears about nuclear war.United States source
1983June 13 – Pioneer 10 passes the orbit of Neptune, becoming the first human-made object to leave the vicinity of the major planets of the Solar System.source
1983June 18 – Sally Ride becomes the first female American astronaut in space when she launches on board Challenger's STS-7 mission together with four male crewmates.source
1983June 18 – STS-7: Sally Ride becomes the first American woman in space, on the Space Shuttle Challenger.United States source
19831 July – The Official Information Act 1982 replaces the 1951 Official Secrets Act.New Zealand source
1983July 7 – Ten-year-old American girl Samantha Smith accepts her invitation from Soviet Premier Yuri Andropov and begins her visit to the USSR with her parents.source
198311 July – Fandi Ahmad signs for FC Groningen.Singapore source
1983September 26 – The Australian yacht Australia II wins the America's Cup, the first successful challenge to the New York Yacht Club's 132-year defence of the sailing trophy.source
1983September 26 – The Soyuz T-10-1 mission ends in a pad abort at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, when a pad fire occurs at the base of the Soyuz U rocket during the launch countdown. The escape tower system, attached to the top of the capsule containing the crew and Soyuz spacecraft, fires immediately, pulling the crew safe from the vehicle a few seconds before the rocket explodes, destroying the launch complex.source
1983September 27 – The GNU Project is announced publicly on the net.unix-wizards and net.usoft newsgroups.source
1983October 4 – British entrepreneur Richard Noble sets a new land speed record of 633.468 mph (1,019.468 km/h), driving Thrust2 at the Black Rock Desert, Nevada.source
1983October 21 – At the 17th General Conference on Weights and Measures, the metre is defined in terms of the speed of light as the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second.source
1983November 13 – The first United States cruise missiles arrive at RAF Greenham Common in the UK amid protests from peace campaigners.source
198318 November – Jon Lech Johansen, programmerNorway source
1983December - The new Volkswagen Golf manages third place in the European Car of the Year award, which is won by the Fiat Uno from Italy, with second place being attained by the Peugeot 205 from France.Germany source
1983Nigel Jenkins - Practical DreamsWales source
1984February 3 – STS-41-B: Space Shuttle Challenger is launched on the 10th Space Shuttle mission.source
1984February 7 – Astronauts Bruce McCandless II and Robert L. Stewart make the first untethered space walk.source
198427 March – Starlight Express opens at Apollo Victoria Theatre in London.England source
198429 March – Germany in the Eurovision Song Contest 1984Germany source
1984April 2 – Indian Squadron Leader Rakesh Sharma is launched into space, aboard the Soyuz T-11.source
19842 April – Squadron Leader Rakesh Sharma is launched into space, aboard the Soyuz T-11.India source
1984April – A 915g jar of Vegemite is the first product in Australia to be electronically scanned at a checkout.Australia source
1984May 11 – A transit of Earth from Mars takes place.source
1984May 12 – The Louisiana World Exposition, also known as the 1984 World's Fair, opens.source
19841 July – Moshé Feldenkrais (born 1904), Russian (Ukraine)-born Israeli physicist and the founder of the Feldenkrais Method.Israel source
1984July 25 – Salyut 7: cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya becomes the first woman to perform a space walk.source
1984August 30 – STS-41-D: the Space Shuttle Discovery takes off on its maiden voyage.source
1984September 5 – STS-41-D: the Space Shuttle Discovery lands after its maiden voyage at Edwards Air Force Base in California.source
1984September 14 – Joe Kittinger begins his attempt to become the first person to fly a gas balloon solo across the Atlantic Ocean.source
1984October 5 – STS-41-G: Marc Garneau becomes the first Canadian in space, aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger.source
1984October 11 – Aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, astronaut Kathryn D. Sullivan becomes the first American woman to perform a space walk.source
198425 November – Professor Muzaffer Aksoy shares the Ramazzini award with Prof. Enrico C. Vigliani.Turkey source
1984Bangladesh participated in the first ever South Asian Games held in Kathmandu 17–23 September. Bangladesh won 2 golds (in Men's Triple Jump and Men's 4 x 100 Metres Relay), 8 silvers and 13 bronzes to finish the tournament at the fifth position in overall points table.Bangladesh source
1984Dance Exponents – I'll Say Goodbye (Even Though I'm Blue)New Zealand source
1985January 7 – Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency launches Sakigake, Japan's first interplanetary spacecraft and the first deep space probe to be launched by any country other than the United States or the Soviet Union.source
1985February 5 – Australia cancels its involvement in U.S.-led MX missile tests.source
1985February 8: The first Brazilian artificial satellite, Brasilsat A1, is launched from the Kourou launch base in French Guiana.Brazil source
19851 March – SES is established as Europe's first commercial satellite operator.Luxembourg source
198521 March - Germany in the Eurovision Song Contest 1985Germany source
1985March – The GNU Manifesto, written by Richard Stallman, is first published.source
1985April 19 – The Soviet Union performs a nuclear weapon test in eastern Kazakhstan.source
1985May 16 – Scientists of the British Antarctic Survey announce the discovery of the ozone hole.source
19854 June – Pochonbo Electronic Ensemble FormedNorth Korea source
1985June 24 – STS-51-G: Space Shuttle Discovery completes its mission, best remembered for having Sultan bin Salman Al Saud, the first Arab and first Muslim in space, as a payload specialist.source
1985July 19 – New Hampshire teacher Christa McAuliffe is selected as the first person to go into space under the Teacher in Space Project, and designated to ride aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger.source
1985July 27 – The 63 Building officially opens as the tallest skyscraper outside of North America in Yeouido, Seoul, South Korea.South Korea source
1985August 7 – Takao Doi, Mamoru Mohri and Chiaki Mukai are chosen to be Japan's first astronauts.Japan source
1985October 3 – The Space Shuttle Atlantis makes its maiden flight.source
19856 October – Noah Moses (born 1912), publisher and editor of Yedioth Ahronoth.Israel source
1985November 12 – A total solar eclipse occurs over Antarctica at 14:11:22 UTC.source
1985December 1 – The Ford Taurus and Mercury Sable are released for sale to the public in the US.source
1985Texas Instruments, a multinational corporation, starts its India operations in Bangalore and helps create infrastructure to export software via satellite communications from India for the first time.India source
1986January 24 – The Voyager 2 space probe makes its first encounter with Uranus.source
19867 February — Following Lindy Chamberlain's identification of a baby's jacket found near Uluru as being similar to the one worn by her baby Azaria, her case takes a new turn.Australia source
1986February 9 – Halley's Comet reaches its perihelion, the closest point to the Sun, during its second visit to the Solar System in the 20th century (the first was in 1910).source
1986February 11 – Human rights activist Natan Sharansky is released by Soviet authorities and leaves the country for Israel.source
1986February 15 – The Beechcraft Starship makes its maiden flight.source
1986February 19 – The Soviet Union launches the Mir space station.source
198620 February – The first component of the Mir space station - the core module - is launched.Soviet Union source
1986Ousted Marcos and his family are transported through airlift by four United States helicopters to Clark Air Base.Philippines source
1986March 8 – The Japanese Suisei probe flies by Halley's Comet, studying its UV hydrogen corona and solar wind.source
1986March 13 – In a Black Sea incident, American cruiser USS Yorktown and the destroyer USS Caron, claiming the right of innocent passage, enter the Soviet territorial waters near the southern Crimean Peninsula.source
198613 March – 1986 Black Sea incident: American cruiser USS Yorktown and the destroyer USS Caron, claiming the right of innocent passage, enter the Soviet territorial waters near the southern Crimean Peninsula.Soviet Union source
1986March 28: The second Brazilian communications satellite, Brasilsat A2, is launched by a European Ariane 3 rocket from the Kourou launch base in French Guiana.Brazil source
1986Halley's Comet reaches the closest point to the Earth during its second visit to the Solar System in the 20th century. The next time it will be seen is predicted for 2061.United States source
1986April 13 – The first child born to a non-related surrogate mother is born.source
198616 April – Bejski Commission publishes its report.Israel source
1986April 18 – Titan 34D-9 explodes just after launch while carrying the final KH-9 satellite.source
1986May 12 – NBC unveils its current peacock logo at the finale of its 60th anniversary special.source
1986June 5 – Botswana, Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe agree to the establishment of the Limpopo Basin Permanent Technical Committee.South Africa source
1986July 2 – Walt Disney Pictures releases the company's 26th animated film, The Great Mouse Detective.source
1986July - Launch of the second generation BMW 7 Series.Germany source
1986August 6 – Metroid is released by Nintendo for the Famicom Disk System.source
1986August 31 – The cargo ship Khian Sea departs from the docks of Philadelphia, carrying 14,000 tons of toxic waste. It wanders the seas for the next 16 months trying to find a place to dump its cargo. The waste is later dumped in Haiti.source
198622 September – Australia-India test cricket match ends in a tie at the M. A. Chidambaram Stadium, Chepauk, Chennai, becoming only the second tied test in the history.India source
1986October 3 – A hybrid solar eclipse was visible off the coast of Iceland, and was the 53rd solar eclipse of Solar Saros 124.source
1986December 14 – Rutan Voyager, an experimental aircraft designed by Burt Rutan and piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, begins its flight around the world from Edwards Air Force Base in the United States.source
1986December 31 – Soviet submarine Krasnoyarsk (K-173) is commissioned.source
1987January 1: Reflectors on each side of your tires become mandatory when you’re cycling.Netherlands source
1987February 23 – SN 1987A, the first "naked-eye" supernova since 1604, is observed.source
1987March 1 – The first Starbucks outside of the US is opened in Vancouver, Canada.source
1987March 18 – Woodstock of physics: A marathon session of the American Physical Society's meeting features 51 presentations concerning the science of high-temperature superconductors.source
1987March 29 – A hybrid solar eclipse is the second hybrid solar eclipse in less than one year, the first being on October 3, 1986. It is annular visible in southern Argentina, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Sudan (part of the path of annularity crossed today's South Sudan), Ethiopia, Djibouti and northern Somalia and totally visible in Atlantic Ocean, lasting just 7.57 seconds.source
1987May 28 – Eighteen-year-old West German pilot Mathias Rust evades Soviet air defenses and lands a private plane on Red Square in Moscow. He is immediately detained (released on August 3, 1988).source
1987June 8 – The New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament, and Arms Control Act is passed, the first of its kind in the world.source
1987June 19 – Edwards v. Aguillard: The Supreme Court of the United States rules that a Louisiana law requiring that creation science be taught in public schools whenever evolution is taught is unconstitutional.source
1987June 30 – Canada introduces a one-dollar coin, nicknamed the "Loonie".source
19873 July - Richard Branson and Per Lindstrand become the first people to complete a transatlantic flight in a hot air balloon aboard the balloon Virgin Atlantic Flyer, first touching down in Northern Ireland.Northern Ireland source
1987August 16 – The followers of the Harmonic Convergence claim it is observed around the world.source
198722 August – The renaming of Environmental Protection Bureau to become the Environmental Protection Administration.Taiwan source
198730 August – Israel's government cancels the IAI Lavi programme.Israel source
198720 September – 1987 Portuguese Grand Prix (Formula One race)Portugal source
1987October 12: Susumu Tonegawa wins the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.Japan source
198710 December – The Omniplanetarium (present-day Omni-Theatre) is officially opened.Singapore source
1987Richard William Timm was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award for his work in Bangladesh.Bangladesh source
1988February 12 – The 1988 Black Sea bumping incident: Soviet frigate Bezzavetnyy intentionally rams USS Yorktown in Soviet territorial waters while Yorktown claims innocent passage. The accompanying US destroyer USS Caron escapes damage.source
198812 February – American cruiser USS Yorktown and destroyer USS Caron enter Soviet territorial waters in the Black Sea, where they are bumped by the Soviet frigates Bezzavetny and SKR-6, respectively.Soviet Union source
198831 March — Germany in the Eurovision Song Contest 1988Germany source
1988June 23 – NASA scientist James Hansen testifies to the U.S. Senate that human-made global warming has begun, becoming one of the first environmentalists to warn of the problem.source
1988July 16: The anime film Akira is released.Japan source
198819 September – Israel launches Ofek-1, its first reconnaissance satellite, into space.Israel source
1988September 29 – STS-26: NASA resumes Space Shuttle flights, grounded after the Challenger disaster, with Space Shuttle Discovery.source
1988November 2 – The Morris worm, the first computer worm distributed via the Internet, written by Robert Tappan Morris, is launched from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the U.S.source
1988November 15 – In the Soviet Union, the uncrewed Shuttle Buran is launched by an Energia rocket on its maiden orbital spaceflight (the first and last space flight for the shuttle).source
198821 November – Air France's supersonic Concorde made its first landing at Subang International Airport.Malaysia source
1988An explosion at Lenasia civic centre causes no injuries.South Africa source
198811 December – SES launches its first satellite, Astra 1A, from the Centre Spatial Guyanais, in French Guiana.Luxembourg source
1988The 1988 Singapore Lunar Year of the Dragon 1oz Gold Coin was struck by the Singapore Mint in the year 1988 and belongs to the popular Lunar series of gold bullion coins. Each 24k coin contains 1 troy ounce (31.1035 grams) of gold and is legal tender with a face value of $100Singapore source
198919 January – Planetarium Sultan Iskandar in Kuching, Sarawak, the first planetarium in Malaysia was officially opened.Malaysia source
19895 February – SES' Astra 1A satellite starts broadcasting, beginning SES's dominance of the European satellite communication market.Luxembourg source
1989February 14 – The first of 24 Global Positioning System satellites is placed into orbit.source
1989March 12 – Tim Berners-Lee produces the proposal document that will become the blueprint for the World Wide Web.source
1989March 22 – Asteroid 4581 Asclepius approaches the Earth at a distance of 700,000 km.source
1989March 23 – Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann announce that they have achieved cold fusion at the University of Utah.source
198923 March - Germany in the Eurovision Song Contest 1989Germany source
1989May 13 — Mikhail Gorbachev visits China, the first Soviet leader to do so since the 1960s.China source
1989July 12 – Lotte World, a major recreation complex in Seoul, South Korea, is opened to the public, containing the world's largest indoor amusement park.source
1989July 31 – Nintendo releases the Game Boy portable video game system in North America.source
1989August 1 – The Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao is created through Republic Act No. 6734 also known as the Organic Act.Philippines source
1989August 8 – STS-28: Space Shuttle Columbia takes off on a secret five-day military mission.source
1989August 9 – The asteroid 4769 Castalia is the first directly imaged by radar from Arecibo Observatory.source
1989August 25 – Voyager 2 makes its closest approach to Neptune and its largest moon Triton.source
1989October 9 – An official news agency in the Soviet Union reports the landing of a UFO in Voronezh.source
1989October 9 — Voronezh UFO incidentSoviet Union source
1989October 18 – NASA launches the uncrewed Galileo orbiter on a mission to study the planet Jupiter, via Atlantis mission STS-34.source
1989October 21 – The Commonwealth Heads of Government issue the Langkawi Declaration on the Environment, making environmental sustainability one of the Commonwealth of Nations's main priorities.source
1989November 10 – Gaby Kennard becomes the first Australian woman to fly solo around the world.source
1989December 2 – The Solar Maximum Mission scientific research satellite, launched in 1980, crashes back to earth.source
198917 December – 1989 Intercontinental Cup.Colombia source
1989The science-fiction film Shaani is released.Pakistan source
19901 January – The Fishery Management Act (Act 38/1990) takes effect, making permanent, fully transferable individual quotas the legal basis of Iceland's fisheries regime.Iceland source
1990February 9 – The ADtranz low floor tram, the world's first completely low-floor tram, is introduced in Bremen.source
1990February 14 – The Pale Blue Dot photograph of Earth is sent back from the Voyager 1 probe after completing its primary mission, from around 5.6 billion kilometers (3.5 billion miles) away.source
19903 April – The Israeli reconnaissance satellite Ofek-2 is launched.Israel source
1990April 9 – Comet Austin makes its closest approach to the sun.source
1990April 22 – Earth Day 20 is celebrated by millions worldwide.source
1990April 24 – STS-31: The Hubble Space Telescope is launched aboard Space Shuttle Discovery.source
1990May 15 – Portrait of Dr. Gachet by Vincent van Gogh is sold for a record $82.5 million.source
1990May 29 – Mikhail Gorbachev arrives in Ottawa for a 29-hour visit.source
19903 August – Proton Saga with Megavalve engine is launched.Malaysia source
1990August 12 – "Sue", the best preserved Tyrannosaurus rex specimen ever found, is discovered near Faith, South Dakota, United States, by Sue Hendrickson.source
1990October 27 – The first episode of Pole Chudes is presentedSoviet Union source
1990November 2 – British Satellite Broadcasting and Sky Television plc merge to form BSkyB as a result of massive losses.source
1990November 9 – Universal Pictures releases Child's Play 2source
1990November 12 – Tim Berners-Lee publishes a more formal proposal for the World Wide Web.source
1990November 15 – President Bush signed new Clean Air Act, focused on urban pollution and cancer-causing emissions from industrial sources.source
1990November 15 – STS-38: Space Shuttle Atlantis is launched on a classified U.S. military mission.source
1990November 21 – Nintendo releases the Super Famicom in Japan alongside its launch games Super Mario World and F-Zero.source
19907 December – The 1990 Chilean telethon takes place.Chile source
19907 December – Cargolux orders six Boeing 747-400s.Luxembourg source
1990December 20 – Tim Berners-Lee completes the test for the first webpage at CERN.source
1990December 25 – Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov is commissioned.source
199026 December – Inuka is born in Singapore Zoo, thus becoming the first polar bear to be born in the tropics.Singapore source
19901990 Central American and Caribbean Games held in Mexico City.Mexico source
1991February 6 – A Boeing KC-135E Stratotanker is involved in an accident over Saudi Arabia when two engines on the left wing detach from the aircraft. The pilots manage to execute an emergency landing saving all four crew members on board. The aircraft is later repaired and returned to service.source
1991February – The Rettig Report is released.Chile source
19912 March – SES launches its second satellite, Astra 1B.Luxembourg source
1991April 5 – Space Shuttle Atlantis leaves an observatory in Earth's orbit to study gamma rays before returning on April 11. It is followed by Space Shuttle Discovery, which studies instruments related to the Strategic Defense Initiative from April 29 to May 6. Space Shuttle Columbia carries the Spacelab into orbit on June 5.source
1991April 10 – A South Atlantic tropical cyclone develops in the Southern Hemisphere off the coast of Angola, the first of its kind to be documented by weather satellites.source
199113 May – Underwater World opens its doors.Singapore source
1991June 4 – A large solar flare triggers an unusually large aurora as far south as Pennsylvania.source
1991June 23 – Sonic the Hedgehog is released by Sega for the Sega Genesis to compete with Nintendo's Mario franchise.source
19911 July – Lucas Vázquez, footballerSpain source
1991July 11 – A solar eclipse of record totality occurs in the Northern hemisphere and is witnessed by hundreds of millions of people in Hawaii, Mexico, Colombia and Brazil.source
199111 July – Solar eclipse of July 11, 1991Colombia source
1991August – The Vision 2020 (Wawasan 2020) programme was launched.Malaysia source
199122 September - Portuguese Grand PrixPortugal source
1991October 15 – The Oh-My-God particle, the highest energy cosmic ray ever recorded, is detected.source
1991October 29 – NASA's Galileo spacecraft makes its closest approach to 951 Gaspra, becoming the first probe to visit an asteroid.source
1991The FIL Award is awarded for the first time, the recipient is Chilean author Nicanor Parra.Mexico source
1992January 9 – First confirmed detection of exoplanets with announcement of the discovery of several terrestrial-mass planets orbiting the pulsar PSR B1257+12, by radio astronomers Aleksander Wolszczan and Dale Frail working in the United States.source
1992March 22 – STS-45: Space Shuttle Atlantis takes off from Cape Canaveral carrying instruments designed to study global warming.source
199226 April – Pakistan's Alam Channa enters Guinness Book of World Records as the tallest man in the world.Pakistan source
1992May 7 – STS-49: Space Shuttle Endeavour makes its maiden flight, as a replacement for Space Shuttle Challenger.source
1992May 9 – The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is adopted in New York.source
199225–29 May - International conference on interaction of computational methods and measurements in hydraulics and hydrologyHungary source
1992June 3–14 – The Earth Summit is held in Rio de Janeiro.source
1992July 10 – The Giotto spacecraft flies past Comet 26P/Grigg–Skjellerup, gathering measurements about the comet.source
1992July 26 – Iraq agrees to allow UN weapons inspectors to search the Iraqi Agricultural Ministry building in Baghdad. When inspectors arrive on July 28 and 29, they find nothing and voice suspicions that Iraqi records have been removed.source
199216 October – A new Act of Parliament re-establishes the former Order of Merit of the Polish People's Republic under the new name Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland (Order Zasługi Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej).Poland source
199230 December – Radio Luxembourg shuts down its English language satellite signal, putting an end to its English coverage.Luxembourg source
1992Argentina at the 1992 Summer ParalympicsArgentina source
1992United States-Hong Kong Policy Act is formulated.Hong Kong source
1992Switzerland in the Eurovision Song Contest 1992.Switzerland source
1992On 30th June, 1992, a total solar eclipse in Uruguay ( for about 5m21s)Uruguay source
199311 January – 15 tonnes of narcotics were seized by the police in a Panama ensign shipTurkey source
1993March 8 – The Moon moves into its nearest point to Earth, called perigee, at the same time as its fullest phase of the Lunar Cycle. The Moon appears to be 14% bigger and 30% brighter than the year's other full moons. The next time these two events coincided was in 2008.source
1993April 22 — The China National Space Administration is established.China source
199312 May – SES launches its third satellite, Astra 1C.Luxembourg source
1993May 14: The Ecologist Green Party of Mexico is founded.Mexico source
1993June 11 – Jurassic Park releases in cinemas in the United States.source
1993June 24 – UK mathematician Andrew Wiles wins worldwide fame after presenting his proof of Fermat's Last Theorem, a problem that had been unsolved for more than three centuries.source
1993August 5 – The discovery of the Tel Dan Stele, the first archaeological confirmation of the existence of the Davidic line, announced.source
1993August 21 – NASA loses radio contact with the Mars Observer orbiter 3 days before the spacecraft is scheduled to enter orbit around Mars.source
1993September 17 – The last Russian military personnel leave Poland.source
1993September 26 – The first mission in Biosphere 2 ends after two years.source
1993September 26 – PoSAT-1 (the first Portuguese satellite) is launched on board French rocket Ariane 4.source
1993October 5 – China performs a nuclear test, ending a worldwide de facto moratorium.source
1993November 12 – London Convention: Marine dumping of radioactive waste is outlawed.source
1993December 2 – STS-61: NASA launches the Space Shuttle Endeavour on a mission to repair an optical flaw in the Hubble Space Telescope.source
1993December 20 – The first corrected images from the Hubble Space Telescope are taken.source
1993December 21 – Phil Vischer and Mike Nawrocki's VeggieTales is first released.source
1993Tlemcen National Park is established.Algeria source
1993Finland in the Eurovision Song Contest 1993Finland source
19931993 North Korean missile testNorth Korea source
1993Switzerland in the Eurovision Song Contest 1993Switzerland source
1994January 8 – Soyuz TM-18: Valeri Polyakov begins his 437.7-day orbit of the Earth, eventually setting the world record for days spent in orbit.source
19947 February – The Planetarium Negara (National Planetarium) in Kuala Lumpur officially opened.Malaysia source
1994March 31 – The journal Nature reports the finding in Ethiopia of the first complete Australopithecus afarensis skull.source
19945 May – Weightlifter Naim Süleymanoğlu gained the title European championTurkey source
1994July 16–22 – Fragments of Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 impact the planet Jupiter.source
1994August 18 – Yeshayahu Leibowitz (born 1903), Russian (Latvia)-born Israeli philosopher and scientist.Israel source
199425 September - Portuguese Grand PrixPortugal source
1994October 13 – Kenzaburō Ōe receives the Nobel Prize in Literature.Japan source
19941 November – SES launches its fourth satellite, Astra 1D.Luxembourg source
1994December 3 – Sony releases the PlayStation video game system in Japan; it will sell over 100 million units worldwide by the time it is discontinued in 2006.source
1994Dr. Muhammad Yunus wins the World Food PrizeBangladesh source
1994Kousoku Sentai Turboranger on IBC-13 – June 25; Saturday 6:00 pmPhilippines source
1995January 9 – Valeri Polyakov completes 366 days in space while aboard the Mir space station, breaking a duration record.source
1995January 25 – Norwegian rocket incident: A rocket launched from the space exploration centre at Andøya, Norway, is briefly interpreted by the Russians as an incoming attack.source
1995March 14 – Astronaut Norman Thagard becomes the first American to ride into space aboard a Russian launch vehicle (the Soyuz TM-21), lifting off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.source
199514 March – Alexandros Panayi represented Cyprus in Eurovision with the song "Sti fotia". It finished 9th with 79 points.Cyprus source
1995March 22 – Cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov returns after setting a record for 438 days in outer space.source
199526 March – Walt Disney Television's Satellite Facility officially opened, marking Disney's first international centre. The facility broadcast Disney programmes to Southeast Asia.Singapore source
19951 April – Malaysian singer, Siti Nurhaliza won Bintang HMI.Malaysia source
1995April 5 – The Israeli reconnaissance satellite Ofek-3 is launched.Israel source
1995June 6 – U.S. astronaut Norman Thagard breaks NASA's space endurance record of 14 days, 1 hour and 16 minutes, aboard the Russian space station Mir.source
1995June 13 – French President Jacques Chirac announces the resumption of nuclear tests in French Polynesia.source
1995June 29 – STS-71: Space Shuttle Atlantis docks with the Russian Mir space station for the first time.source
19955 October - Seamus Heaney is awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.Northern Ireland source
1995October 6 – Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz announce the discovery of 51 Pegasi b, the first confirmed extrasolar planet orbiting an ordinary main-sequence star.source
199519 October – SES launches its fifth satellite, Astra 1E.Luxembourg source
1995October 24 – A total solar eclipse is visible from Iran, India, Thailand and Southeast Asia.source
1995October 24 – The last total solar eclipse of the century is witnessed mostly in Tawi-Tawi, lasting for more than two minutes.Philippines source
1995November 1 – The last signal is received from NASA's Pioneer 11 spacecraft.source
1995December 7 – NASA's Galileo probe enters Jupiter's atmosphere.source
1995December 31 – Final Calvin and Hobbes comic published by Bill Watterson.source
1995Chile national football team 1995Chile source
19961 January – The old laminated NRICs are no longer valid for identification in Singapore.Singapore source
1996January 31 – An amateur astronomer from southern Japan discovers Comet Hyakutake; it will pass very close to the Earth in March.source
1996February 9 – The element copernicium is created by fusing a 208 Pb nucleus with a 70 Zn nucleus, forming 278 Cn. Given the placeholder name "ununbium", the element is not named until 2010.source
1996February 15 – The UK government publishes the Scott Report.source
19968 April – SES launches its sixth satellite, Astra 1F.Luxembourg source
1996June 3/14 – Habitat II (conference)Turkey source
1996June 4 – The space rocket Ariane 5 explodes forty seconds in its maiden flight, after takeoff in French Guiana. The project costs European governments $7,500,000,000 over eleven years.source
1996July 1 – German orthography reform of 1996 agreed internationally.source
19962 July – A new version of Malaysian Ringgit RM 2 notes was introduced.Malaysia source
1996August 1 – Sarah Balabagan returns to the Philippines.source
1996August 1 – Mabuhay, moves to its new orbital slot. Mabuhay satellite, previously named Palapa B-2P, was acquired by Mabuhay Philippines Satellite Corporation on an earlier date this year. Mabuhay became one to be owned by a Filipino entity.Philippines source
1996August 6 – NASA announces that the Allan Hills 84001 meteorite, thought to originate from Mars, may contain evidence of primitive lifeforms; further tests are inconclusive.source
1996August 13 – Data sent back by the Galileo space probe indicates there may be water on one of Jupiter's moons.source
19962 September – President Samper announces that Ecopetrol has discovered oil in Medina, Cundinamarca.Colombia source
1996November 7 – NASA launches the Mars Global Surveyor.source
19967 November – The opening of Taipei Astronomical Museum in Shilin District, Taipei City.Taiwan source
1996November 19 – Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) established.source
1996November 19 – STS-80: Space Shuttle Columbia conducts the longest mission of the Space Shuttle program.source
1996Alternative rock group Plastilina Mosh is founded.Mexico source
1997January 17 – A Delta II rocket carrying a military GPS payload explodes, shortly after liftoff from Cape Canaveral.source
1997February 13 – STS-82: Tune-up and repair work on the Hubble Space Telescope is started by astronauts from the Space Shuttle Discovery.source
1997March 22 – The Comet Hale–Bopp makes its closest approach to Earth.source
1997April 21 – A Pegasus rocket carries the remains of 24 people into earth orbit, in the first space burial by Celestis company.source
1997June 25 – An uncrewed spacecraft Progress M-34 collides with the Russian space station Mir.source
1997July 4 – NASA's Pathfinder space probe lands on the surface of Mars.source
1997July 10 – In London, scientists report their DNA analysis findings from a Neanderthal skeleton, which support the out of Africa theory of human evolution, placing an "African Eve" at 100,000 to 200,000 years ago.source
199715 September – Singapore Airlines launches KrisWorld, the world's first airline to have an inflight system.Singapore source
19979 October – Luxair places an order for two Embraer ERJ 145 regional jets following the airline's decision to create an all-jet fleet.Luxembourg source
1997October 15 – NASA launches the Cassini–Huygens probe to Saturn.source
1997October 15 – Andy Green sets the first supersonic land speed record for the ThrustSSC team, led by Richard Noble of the UK. ThrustSSC goes through the flying mile course at Black Rock Desert, Nevada at an average speed of 1,227.985 km/h (763.035 mph).source
1997November 27 – NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission is launched, the start of the satellite component of the Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System.source
1997December – An episode of Batibot, a production being aired over GMA-7, on "Child of Labor: Sugarcane Workers" wins the UNICEF Prize from the 24th Japan Prize International Educational Program Contest; the prize is received at awarding ceremonies held in Tokyo.Philippines source
1997The third and final SAARC Quadrangular was held in Dhaka in February 1997. The Pakistan 'A' team, led by Asif Mujtaba, won the trophy after beating India 'A' in a rain affected final. Bangladesh could not win any matches in this tournament.Bangladesh source
1997China at the 1997 East Asian GamesChina source
1997Lorentz National Park established.Indonesia source
1997Homenaje a Salvador Lutteroth (1997)Mexico source
1997Viagem ao Principio do Mundo (Voyage to the Beginning of the World) by Manoel de Oliveira.Portugal source
19981 January – Visit Nepal Year 1998 begins.Nepal source
1998January 6 – The Lunar Prospector spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently shadowed craters near the Moon's poles.source
1998February 6 – Washington National Airport is officially renamed Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.source
1998March 2 – Data sent from the Galileo probe indicates that Jupiter's moon Europa has a liquid ocean under a thick crust of ice.source
1998March 5 – NASA announces that the Clementine probe orbiting the Moon has found enough water in polar craters to support a human colony and rocket fueling station.source
1998March 13 – The High-Z Supernova Search Team becomes the first team to publish evidence that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate.source
1998May 19 – The Galaxy IV communications satellite fails, leaving 80–90% of the US's pagers without service.source
1998May 30 – A second nuclear test, codenamed Chagai-II, is conducted and supervised by the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC).source
1998May 30 – The second nuclear test — Codename Chagai-II — was conducted and supervised by the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) on May 30, 1998.Pakistan source
1998In May 1998, UNESCO issued a technical report on the Endless Column, part of the Sculptural Ensemble of Constantin Brâncuși at Târgu Jiu, which is today a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This document is stated to have represented a milestone in the history of the Endless Column. On its provisions, the Romanian Government commissioned new tests on the Column's spine, which revealed that it was more suitable to preserve it than to replace it.Romania source
1998June 22: 1998 Sokcho submarine incidentSouth Korea source
1998July 5 – Japan launches the probe Nozomi to Mars, joining the United States and Russia as an outer space-exploring nation.source
199830 August – SES launches its eighth satellite, Astra 2A.Luxembourg source
199812 September – The Argentina national rugby union team plays the first match in its tour of Japan and Europe.Argentina source
199816 October - John Hume and David Trimble are announced as the winners of the Nobel Peace Prize.Northern Ireland source
1998November 17 – Voyager 1 overtakes Pioneer 10 as the most distant man-made object from the Solar System, at a distance of 69.419 AU.source
1998November 20 – A Russian Proton rocket is launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, carrying the first segment of the International Space Station, the 21-ton Zarya Module.source
1998December 4 – The Space Shuttle Endeavour launches the first U.S.-built component to the International Space Station, the 25,600 lb Unity module on STS-88. It docks with Zarya two days later.source
1998December 31 – The first leap second since June 30, 1997, occurs.source
1998The Taliban movement gives Afghans 15 days to get rid of their television sets, video players, and satellite receivers. The Taliban has anyway put a stop to television broadcasts in the two-thirds of the country it controls. But Maulvi Qalamuddin, the Taliban deputy minister in charge of its Department for Prevention of Vice and Promotion of Virtue, said people continued to watch video tapes and foreign television channels received via satellite dishes. He said watching video tapes and satellite television broadcasts was inadmissible in Islam, damaging to morals, and caused mental disorders.Afghanistan source
1999January 3 – The Mars Polar Lander is launched by NASA.source
1999February 11 – Pluto moves along its eccentric orbit further from the Sun than Neptune. It had been nearer than Neptune since 1979, and will become again in 2231.source
199919 February - Hugo Gonzalez, swimmerSpain source
199919 April – Two brothers, Justin Read, 19 and Gerald Read, 25 were the first Malaysians to reach the North Pole after encountering challenging weather.Malaysia source
1999May 27 – Space Shuttle Discovery is launched on STS-96, the first shuttle mission to dock with the International Space Station.source
199916 June – SES launches its ninth satellite, Astra 1H.Luxembourg source
1999June 25 – Bosnia and Herzegovina gets a new national anthem.source
199918 July – The new Woodlands Checkpoint starts operations.Singapore source
1999July 20 – Mercury program: Liberty Bell 7 – piloted by Gus Grissom in 1961 – is raised from the Atlantic Ocean.source
1999July 23 – NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory is launched.source
1999August 11 – A total solar eclipse is seen in Europe and Asia.source
1999September 9 – Sega releases the Dreamcast in North America, marking the launch of its final home video game console.source
1999September 23 – NASA permanently loses contact with the Mars Climate Orbiter during orbital insertion around Mars, resulting in the spacecraft's loss and the failure of the mission.source
199921 October – Appears in Bucharest the first issue of Playboy magazine.Romania source
1999November 20 – China launches the first Shenzhou spacecraft.source
1999December 3 – NASA loses radio contact with the Mars Polar Lander, moments before the spacecraft enters the Martian atmosphere.source
1999December 9 – The hormone Ghrelin is discovered and named.source
1999December 18 – NASA launches the Terra platform into orbit, carrying five Earth Observation instruments, including ASTER, CERES, MISR, MODIS and MOPITT.source
19991999 FIFA Confederations Cup Final.Mexico source
1999Netherlands in the Eurovision Song Contest 1999Netherlands source
1999Pakistan tests its Ghauri II missile.Pakistan source