We review the last fortnight of October, with the most notable scientific and technological events:
October 31, 2012: On this day, the first (analog) video game is presented
October 31, 2000: The Soyuz TM-31 rocket takes off with the first crew of the International Space Station.
October 31, 1867: Lord Rosse died. He discovered the spiral structure of -M51- and named -M1- the Crab Nebula.
October 30, 1938: Radio broadcast of “The War of the Worlds” (HG Wells) took place on CBS
October 30, 1961 The “Tsar’s Bomb” was detonated, the world’s most powerful nuclear device that has been exploded
October 29, 1675, Gottfried Leibniz first used the symbol for the integral, the same one used today.
October 28, 1703: The English mathematician John Wallis, who introduced the symbol ∞ to mathematical notation, dies.
October 28, 1955: Bill Gates is born, president of Microsoft, whose operating system for personal computers revolutionized the world.
October 28, 1914 – Jonas Salk, discoverer of the polio vaccine, is born
October 28, 1763: William Maclure is born, considered the father of North American geology (he produced the first geological map)
October 27, 1553: The Spanish doctor Miguel Servet, discoverer of pulmonary blood circulation, is burned at the stake.
October 26, 1885: Louis Pasteur presents his work on immunization against rabies to the Academy of Sciences in Paris
October 25, 1671: Giovanni Cassini discovers Iapetus, a moon of the planet Saturn.
October 24, 1851: Astronomer William Lassell discovers two of the moons of the planet Uranus, Umbriel and Ariel.
October 24, 1601: Tycho Brahe, considered one of the most important astronomers before the invention of the telescope, dies.
October 23: Mol Day
October 22, 1975: The Soviet Venera 9 probe lands on Venus.
October 22, 1968: Apollo 7 safely returns to Earth after orbiting it 163 times
October 21, 1833: Birth of Alfred Nobel, inventor of dynamite and creator of the Nobel Prize
October 20, 1972: Harlow Shapley, known as the ‘Modern Copernicus’, died for discovering the position of the Sun in our galaxy
October 18, 1931: Thomas Alva Edison dies
October 18, 1871: Charles Babbage, a mathematician who drew up the design of the “Differential Engine”, dies, considered the first computer in history.
October 17, 1934: Histologist and Nobel Prize in Medicine Santiago Ramóm y Cajal dies
October 17, 1604: The German astronomer Johannes Kepler observes a supernova in the constellation Ophiuchus
October 16, 1846: Dr. William Thomas Morton uses ether as an anesthetic for the first time, resulting in painless surgery.
October 16: International Day of the Anesthesiologist (in honor of Morton)
October 16, 1937: William Gosset, the inventor of the test, dies.
October 16: “Ada Lovelace Day”, Ada Lovelace Day, an event to celebrate the presence of women in science
