Italian physicist Giorgio Parisi (INFN, Sapienza University of Rome, vice president of the Accademia dei Lincei) wins the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on Complex Systems. He shares the prize equally with Syukuro Manabe and Klaus Hasselmann. The two researchers received the award
Syria. Khalid al-Asaad, the internationally renowned archaeologist in charge of the Roman ruins of Palmyra, refused to lead Islamic State (Daesh/ISIS) terrorists to the archaeological site and, after being held captive for days, was beheaded in a public square in front of a crowd and
The Opportunity and Spirit probes find clear evidence of the presence of salty water in the past on the Martian soil in two different points of the planet
Experimental evidence for the existence of eight gluons, carriers of the strong interaction that holds quarks together, begins to accumulate: Quantum ChromoDynamics (QCD) is born.
Alan Guth, in an attempt to solve Dirac’s magnetic monopole problem, proposed the theory of inflation, which automatically corrected several flaws in the Big Bang theory. With the sudden acceleration of expansion imposed by inflation, the boundary conditions for producing magnetic monopoles would never be
Richard Nixon decides to cancel the Apollo 18, 19, and 20 missions that would have perhaps visited the Thyco crater and the far side of the Moon.
The White House issues a circular stating that space missions will henceforth be less important than in the past.
For the first time in 4 billion years of evolution, a terrestrial animal race arrives on another celestial body.
4:56 AM Italian time: Armstrong and (20 minutes later) Aldrin land on the Moon (anticipating NASA’s plans); Armstrong, as soon as he lands, utters the famous phrase: “That’s one small step for [a] man … one giant leap for mankind”; Neil pulls a ring that
NORAD is founded to organize and analyze data from the radar network that constitutes the Distant Early Warning Line. NORAD oversees 24 Direction Centers and three Combat Centers spread across the United States. The Direction Centers are enormous, four-story, windowless buildings equipped with a pair
Palagano, Modena Apennines. An entire Allied battalion, composed of British, American, Italian, and even Russian troops, is parachuted into the mountains near the retreating German forces. The soldiers, commanded by British Major McGinty, are hosted overnight by the citizens of Palagano, who receive biscuits, chocolate,
Smallpox killed more than 300 million people in the 20th century alone, despite the vaccine having been available for over 100 years.
Maximilian Wolf of the Heidelberg Observatory discovers his first asteroid: 323 Brucia. He uses an innovative and highly effective technique: multiple photographic exposures following the Earth’s motion, which visualize stars as dots and any other moving objects as streaks. He will thus discover 231 new
Thomas Alva Edison developed and demonstrated the keyboard-based speaking telegraph: the concept of text digitally transformed into sound by combining recording and playback in the same instrument. He worked hard to include the correct sound for sibilant words like scythe (sickle), which must not have
The Society of Naturalists of Modena appoints Charles Darwin an honorary member, who responds with a letter of thanks