Humanity's first times

Valentina Tereshkova

The Soviet cosmonaut orbited the Earth solo.

💡 Did you know? She stayed in space for almost three days.

Alexander Graham Bell

Bell received the patent for the telephone in 1876, introducing long-distance communication. He also worked all his life on helping the deaf.

💡 Did you know? The first words on the telephone are said to have been: 'Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you.'

Carl Benz

In 1886 Benz built the 'Motorwagen', the first practical automobile with a petrol engine. His company later became Mercedes-Benz.

💡 Did you know? The first long drive was made secretly by his wife Bertha Benz: over 100 km, to make the car known.

Angela Merkel

A trained physicist, she shaped German and European politics for 16 years.

💡 Did you know? She was long regarded as one of the most powerful women in the world.

Athens

Christiaan Barnard

The first patient survived 18 days.

💡 Did you know? The operation made headlines worldwide.

Yuri Gagarin

On 12 April 1961 he circled the Earth once in the Vostok 1 capsule, in 108 minutes.

💡 Did you know? Gagarin left the capsule at seven kilometres and landed by parachute. Because that would have breached the aviation federation's rules, the Soviet Union kept it secret for years.

1970s

Tomlinson picked the @ sign to separate user from machine: the notation still holds.

💡 Did you know? He could not remember what the first message said; probably QWERTYUIOP or similar. He sent it to the computer standing right next to his.

A view from a window

Joseph Nicéphore Niépce took it around 1826, on a pewter plate coated with bitumen.

💡 Did you know? The exposure lasted about eight hours. That is why the sun lights both sides of the buildings: it moved across the sky while the picture was being made.

smallpox

In 1796 Edward Jenner transferred cowpox material and showed that it protected against deadly human smallpox.

💡 Did you know? The word vaccine comes from vacca, the cow. Smallpox remains the only human disease ever eradicated worldwide: the WHO declared it beaten in 1980.

Deep Blue

The machine won the rematch 3½ to 2½. A year earlier Kasparov had still won.

💡 Did you know? Kasparov accused IBM of human intervention. IBM declined another match and dismantled Deep Blue soon after.

2007

It had no keyboard, no App Store and no 3G and still changed the industry within a few years.

💡 Did you know? The App Store came a year later. Steve Jobs first wanted apps to be websites only; developer pressure changed his mind.

Roald Amundsen

He arrived on 14 December 1911, a good month before Robert Falcon Scott.

💡 Did you know? Amundsen relied on dog sledges, Scott on ponies and motor sledges. Scott's party died on the way back: the difference lay above all in the equipment.

Hillary and Tenzing Norgay

The New Zealander and the Nepali Sherpa stood there together on 29 May 1953.

💡 Did you know? Neither ever said who took the last step. Only years later did Tenzing explain that Hillary went ahead; they had treated it as a shared achievement.

1919

At the election to the Weimar National Assembly on 19 January 1919; the right had been granted in November 1918.

💡 Did you know? New Zealand was first in 1893. Switzerland took until 1971 and the canton of Appenzell Innerrhoden until 1990, where it took a court ruling.

Sputnik 1

The Soviet Union put the 83-kilogram sphere into orbit on 4 October 1957. It transmitted a beeping signal for three weeks.

💡 Did you know? The shock in the United States was so great that NASA was founded in response and science teaching in schools was funded heavily: the Sputnik crisis.

London

The Metropolitan Railway connected Paddington with Farringdon Street.

💡 Did you know? The trains ran on steam at first: underground. The ventilation shafts barely coped and passengers complained about smoke and soot.

Ferdinand Magellan

Five ships set out in 1519; one returned in 1522, with 18 of roughly 240 men.

💡 Did you know? Magellan never arrived: he was killed in the Philippines in 1521. Juan Sebastián Elcano completed the voyage.

Matthew Webb

He took just under 22 hours from Dover to Calais, without a wetsuit, greased with porpoise oil.

💡 Did you know? Webb drowned eight years later trying to swim the rapids below Niagara Falls.

1930s

The BBC began a regular service in 1936; Germany ran an experimental service from 1935.

💡 Did you know? The 1936 Berlin Olympics were shown in public television parlours: private sets barely existed, so people watched together in halls.