Today in Science

Events

1178 - Five Canterbury monks see what was possibly the Giordano Bruno crater being formed.

1858 - Charles Darwin receives from Alfred Russel Wallace a paper that included nearly identical conclusions about evolution as Darwin’s own. This prompts Darwin to publish his theory.

1983 - STS-7, Sally Ride (above) becomes the first American woman in space.

Births

1845 - Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran, French physician, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

1886 - Alexander Wetmore, American ornithologist

1918 - Jerome Karle, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate

1928 - David T. Lykken, American psychologist

1932 - Dudley R. Herschbach, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate

Deaths

1650 - Christoph Scheiner, German astronomer

1922 - Jacobus Kapteyn, Dutch astronomer

1971 - Paul Karrer, Swiss chemist, Nobel Prize laureate