First expedition to reach the South Pole, 1911
On 14th December, a team of arctic explorers led by Roald Amundsen arrived at the South Pole. They had beaten a rival expedition led by Robert Falcon Scott, by 34…
Fats Waller died, 1943
Thomas Wright Waller was born in New York City on 21st May 1904. His mother, Adeline, taught him to play the reed organ with which he later accompanied his father,…
Last recorded eruption of Mount Fuji, 1707
On 16th December 1707, Mount Fuji in Japan erupted. While this Hōei Eruption (as it became known) did not produce a lava flow, during its two week duration the eruption…
First successful powered airplane flight, 1903
At the dawn of the twentieth-century, the brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright left their cycle manufacturing business in Dayton, Ohio and travelled to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina to undertake experiments…
First European landing on New Zealand, 1642
Born in 1603 in the Dutch province of Groningen, Abel Tasman entered the service of the Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (Dutch East India Company). By the mid-1630s Tasman was serving as…
Emily Brontë died, 1848
Born on 30th July 1818 at the Parsonage in Thornton, near Bradford, Yorkshire, Emily Jane Brontë was the fifth of six children of Revd. Patrick Brontë and his wife Maria.…
Electricity generated by nuclear power for the first time, 1951
In 1934 the Italian physicist Enrico Fermi produced nuclear fission for the first time for which he received the Nobel Prize for Physics four years later. After receiving his prize,…
Rochdale Pioneers opened their first store, 1844
In 1844 a group of twenty-eight artisans in Rochdale, near Manchester, established the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers. While not the first co-operative in England, the Rochdale Pioneers set out…
First gorilla born in captivity, 1956
In January 1951, a hunter called Bill Said brought three gorillas to Columbus Zoo in Ohio. Two of the apes, Millie Christina and Baron Macombo, stayed at the zoo as…
Voyager completed record flight, 1986
In 1980, a former United States Air Force pilot called Dick Rutan met fellow pilot Jeana Yeager (no relation of Chuck Yeager) at an airshow in Chino, California. Romance blossomed…