CN

Andy Clark and David Chalmers publish the theory of the extended mind: our mind uses, for its cognitive processes, not only our biological brain, but also many of its external artificial or cultural connections.

Russia declares financial default (bankruptcy).

Launch of the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS); its primary mission will last two years and will result in the collection of 58,000 high-resolution photographs, 490 million laser altimeter measurements, and 97 million spectral measurements. It will then be further extended, for a total of 10

World military spending is equal to 700 billion USD (in 1988, at the height of the Cold War, it was equal to 3 trillion USD)

Waco, Texas. The siege of the Branch Davidian sect in Waco, Texas, ends in a massacre. After an initial assault by law enforcement, resulting in the killing, on live television, of four police officers and six besieged residents, the decision is made to attack the

Bill Clinton summons the nation’s top minds to discuss the economic outlook. No one mentions the internet…

Lyon, France. Nazi criminal Klaus Barbie dies of cancer in prison.

With George H.W. Bush’s announcement of the termination of SAC’s ground alert, for the first time since 1957, there will no longer be strategic bombers parked alongside the runway with crews sleeping under tents, carrying thermonuclear weapons. The USSR will cease to exist at Christmas

Mariinsky Palace, Kiev. At 3:30 a.m., Belyaev comes out and tells the crowd that he has received a message from Moscow regarding the withdrawal of the troops besieging the White House. At the Kronstadt naval base, the commander also announces his opposition to the ongoing

American and Soviet Presidents George H.W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev signed the START I Treaty in Moscow. The treaty limited nuclear warheads on both sides to 6,000, effectively eliminating more than 80% of nuclear weapons. Proposed by Ronald Reagan, it was probably the most complex

Eritrea regains independence from Ethiopia after a war that cost tens of thousands of victims

There are 5247 million people in the world

The revolt begins in Timisoara, the capital of Banat, Romania.

American biologists Thomas Cech and Sidney Altman received the Nobel Prize for their studies in the 1980s, which led to the discovery that certain types of RNA can behave like enzymes towards themselves by cutting themselves in two and mending themselves, that is, they can

Gorbachev delivers a historic speech at the United Nations in New York. George H.W. Bush has been president for a month. The USSR is burdened by unsustainable military spending. He writes in his memoirs: “Our military spending is 2.5 times that of the United States;

The Japanese probe Suisei (comet) passes 151,100 km from Halley’s Comet

Freeman Dyson (Princeton) theorizes that life may have had two independent origins: a primordial life form capable of metabolizing proteins but unable to reproduce effectively; the other efficient in reproduction but without metabolism; the two life forms would have then merged (symbiosis).

Edward Belbruno, born in Heidelberg and working at JPL in Pasadena, recognized that the chaotic dynamics of more than two-body problems could offer an opportunity for interplanetary travel. He called the technique Fuzzy Boundary Theory, and in 1990 he tested his theory on the trajectories

Hizbullah (or Hezbollah) hijacks a Kuwaiti airliner and kills two American passengers

Steen Willadsen in Cambridge, UK, produces five identical twin sheep by splitting a single embryo (embryo splitting).

An attack on the international peacekeeping Marine barracks in Beirut left 299 dead; the perpetrators were identified as an Iranian-backed Hizbullah (or Hezbollah) group. The perpetrator, Ibrahim Aqil, was killed in an Israeli raid on Beirut on September 20, 2024.

First successes in shooting down cruise and air-to-air missiles using an airborne laser (on a Boeing 747-400)

Walesa released from prison. On November 14, 1982, the city of Gdańsk, birthplace of the historic Polish shipyard strike, celebrated the homecoming of Solidarity leader Lech Walesa. Walesa, a prominent activist in the Polish labor movement, had been arrested in 1981 as part of Prime

Soviet Union. Upon his death, Brezhnev left behind a paralyzed and visibly declining country, characterized (to use the words of writer Alexander Zinovyev) by Homo Sovieticus: a passive individual, devoid of any initiative, who does what he’s told, avoiding risks, and completely incapable of independent

Ali Agca shoots and kills Pope Wojtyla in St. Peter’s Square

The magnate Armand Hammer buys the Codex Hammer or Codex Leicester by Leonardo da Vinci

Richard Dawkins, and later Doolittle, Sapienza, Orgel, and Crick, developed the Selfish Gene theory, according to which the true purpose of DNA is to survive, and the best way it has found is through the use of vehicles: animals. This theory therefore explains the large

The Gini Index (which measures the degree of inequality), weighted per capita worldwide, is beginning to decline (from 0.65 to 0.60) systematically for the first time since the early 19th century (when it was 0.50). In the United States and the United Kingdom, however, it

At an official dinner at the White House, Chinese leaders sit at the table next to the presidents of Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and General Motors. After dinner, they shake hands with the Harlem Globetrotters. This is now light years removed from the affected indifference with which

Whittington also completes the monograph on Aysheaia from the Burgess Shales: a new conception of life is confirmed

Cincinnati Milacron’s T3 robot adapted to perform drilling and other machining operations on aircraft parts, with support from the U.S. Air Force’s Integrated Computer-Aided Manufacturing (ICAM) project.

Paul Allen is persuaded by Bill Gates to move to Boston, where Bill is a sophomore at Harvard. He takes a job at Honeywell, which had initially been offered to Bill. Paul takes his Chrysler and drives from Washington State to Boston. He has dinner

Ken Olsen, president of DEC, stated, “I see no reason why anyone would want their own computer.” This comment was made at a DEC meeting where he was asked to make a smaller, cheaper version of the PDP-8. As a result, the personal and home

United States. Safe Drinking Water Act.

Primavalle Massacre. The two sons of Mario Mattei, a member of the Italian Social Movement, were burned alive by burning gasoline leaked under their door by Lollo, Clano, and Grillo, three Potere Operaio militants. The three, convicted in 1987, managed to escape to Angola and

Twenty-four-year-old Ukrainian Valentin Bondarenko, the youngest Soviet cosmonaut, trains in a pressurized cabin with 100% oxygen. He wipes his skin with a cotton ball moistened with alcohol and throws it to the floor. The cotton swabs onto a hot metal plate and catches fire, quickly

At Neil Armstrong’s suggestion, the Minneapolis-Honeywell Corporation installs a new self-adjusting wing surface control system on an F-101 Voodoo.

Nachos arrive in the United States. The first restaurant to serve them is El Cholo in Los Angeles.

Prof. C.C. Yang and his student R.L. Mills generalize Maxwell’s fields to the weak and strong nuclear forces by introducing the (force-carrying) W particles and gluons.

Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase radioactively labeled phage DNA, subsequently discovering traces of radioactivity in the infected bacterium, but not in the envelope shed by the virus outside it. Labeling proteins, however, had the opposite effect. This demonstrated that it was not the proteins, but

Charles Yeager reaches Mach 0.94 in his Bell XS-1

American inventor GC Devol develops a magnetic memory system to control a mechanical machine (patented 1952)

Edgar Hoover sends a three-page dossier on Robert Oppenheimer, extracted from FBI files, to the White House and the Secretary of State.

Truman and Churchill, in Potsdam, receive a message from Alamogordo: “Babies born satisfactorily.”

During the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the Japanese command resorted to the ultimate weapon: the kamikaze; from now until the end of the war, 4,615 kamikazes would sacrifice themselves, sinking 35 American units, including 3 aircraft carriers (more than half the planes would be shot

Russia. The Soviet attack to retake Kharkov ends in a stinging defeat with half a million dead and the Wehrmacht still firmly in the city.

Freezing is used on an industrial scale to preserve food

Philosopher Martin Heidegger publishes Sein und Zeit (Being and Time), in which he discusses consciousness and reality.

Türkiye, proclamation of the Republic

Elections in Great Britain. For the first time in the country’s history, the Labour Party wins the elections. It will remain in power for only a year, but it nevertheless breaks the traditional alternation between the Liberal and Conservative Parties.

Shapley describes the Sun as a marginal star in the Milky Way

British counteroffensive at the Somme: 3 million artillery pieces launched in a few days

Fourth Battle of the Isonzo: after 4 battles there are no significant territorial advantages on either side

The 22-year-old Winston Churchill, among the many foreigners who came bearing arms to the Swat Valley in Pakistan over the centuries, wrote in his memoirs with awe of the “Mad Mullah,” who, right on the steep heights of the Malakand Pass, with his daredevil mujahideen,

Philosopher Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy argued that art can only have a purpose if it has a moral purpose, contrary to Nietzsche, who believed that art is autonomous and superior to morality. Tolstoy published What Is Art? in 1897.

2:30 a.m. Nikola Tesla is at work as usual (he leaves around noon and stays until dawn). During an experiment, the laboratory at 33-35 South Fifth Avenue catches fire. Years of work are completely destroyed. Other accounts attribute the fire to the laundry downstairs.

Heinrich Hertz dies at just 36. He made an extraordinary contribution to science, paving the way for the twentieth century of electricity after the 19th century of steam. He was the first to experimentally confirm Maxwell’s controversial theory. Hertz’s health had begun to deteriorate several

Karl Benz and Mr. Daimler build the Victoria model, the first gasoline-powered automobile (2123cc, 5hp at 400rpm, 2 gears)

After the two Emperors Pedro I and Pedro II, the Brazilian Republic was born; the temporary national flag was stars and stripes like the American one but with the colors yellow and green and 27 stars (the 27 confederate states of Brazil).

Johnson & Johnson is founded in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

Thomas Alva Edison’s extraordinary display of electric lamps, all connected together. Edison’s public image thus shifted from the wizard of the recorded voice to that of the wizard of electric light.

massive stock market panic erupts in New York. Banks collapse, triggering a crisis that will last the entire decade.

Friedrich Nietzsche teaches in Basel.

German chemist August Wilhelm von Hofmann invented formaldehyde, which would later be used to preserve tissue. Lenin, Ataturk, and Lady Diana would all be embalmed using formaldehyde.

Milan. Radetzky’s envoy, D’Ettinghausen, visits Cattaneo to negotiate a ceasefire. Cattaneo is opposed to quelling the rebellion. The final NO is confirmed by the arrival of a priest from the Church of San Bartolomeo, who reveals the barbaric execution of Don Lazzarini. D’Ettinghausen is escorted

France. With the abdication of King Louis-Philippe, the Second French Republic is born. Upon hearing the news, Metternich, in Austria, faints.

Sicily rebels against Naples and the King, in Naples, restores, after a few days, the English-style Constitution of 1812.

Christian Schonbein (Switzerland) creates the first artificial plastic made from natural substances: cellulose nitrate

The Austrian army, having descended along the Italian peninsula, crushed the attempted revolt started by the two Carbonari lieutenants Michele Morelli and Giuseppe Silvati, who ended up on the gallows, and re-established the absolute power of Ferdinand I.

Paris. The French Senate deposes Napoleon and the Bonaparte family.

Second American War of Independence: The American Congress declares war on the English; but Napoleon, who could have benefited from this, finds himself trapped in Russia and forced to retreat; the war with the former colonies will end in a draw within a few weeks;

Sterilization of food for preservation discovered

Pierre Simon de Laplace publishes the popular book “Exposition of the System of the World”

Bologna under French, Austrian and papal rule

We are on the eve of the French Revolution and the death of Catherine the Great in Russia. Russia has 40 million people, France 29 million, Austria 22 million, the United Kingdom 15 million, Prussia 10 million.

The French Directory (government) decides in favor of the Italian Campaign and entrusts it to the young Napoleon. Both the Directory and Napoleon neither like nor respect Italy. But they understand that a unified Italy controlled by France would diminish British naval power in the

Filippo Buonarroti, a Frenchified Italian revolutionary, wrote to the French Directory (i.e., the government), urging it to support the revolution in Italy so as to bring down, in a chain reaction, all the various kingdoms, duchies, and papacies…

France: A law is passed declaring all Church assets available to citizens.

Field Marshal Laudon reconquers Belgrade. The city surrenders after an unprecedented and brutal bombardment lasting sixteen hours. But Belgrade will return to Ottoman hands with the Sistova Agreement, due to the games of mutual concessions.

Massachusetts, American Colonies of the British Empire: George Washington, using artillery captured at Ticonderoga and dragged across the snowy hills, bombards and captures Dorchester Heights, facing the Boston Peninsula, effectively outflanking the British in Boston Neck. The British will be forced to abandon their position.