On this day in 1990, the Voyager 1 space probe took a photo of our planet from approximately 6 billion kilometers (3.7 billion miles) away.

"Commissioned by NASA and resulting from the advocacy of astronomer and author Carl Sagan, the photograph was interpreted in Sagan's 1994 book, Pale Blue Dot, as representing humanity's minuscule and ephemeral place amidst the cosmos."

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Blu…

Image via bbc.com/news/science-environme…

#OnThisDay #OTD #history #space #science #nasa #PaleBlueDot #humanity

The Royal Society

"Gregor Mendel, the pioneer of modern genetics, was born #OnThisDay in 1822. His experiments with pea plants established the genetic inheritance of certain traits, and he coined the terms 'recessive' and 'dominant' to describe them."
bit.ly/3Ol3psu

Alan Turing died by suicide on 7 June 1954. Turing was convicted of gross indecency in 1952 and given a choice between imprisonment and probation. His probation would be conditional on his agreement to undergo hormonal physical changes designed to reduce his libido. Turing's conviction led to the removal of his security clearance and barred him from continuing with his consultancy for GCHQ. He was denied entry into the United States after his conviction.

#AlanTuring #GayRights #OnThisDay

#OnThisDay, 8 Apr 1959, Mary K Hawes initiates a project to create the first universal programming language for computers used by businesses and government. Grace Hopper led the team that then created COBOL. Some mainframes are still using it.

#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #WomenInSTEM #Histodons

#OnThisDay, 24 Feb 1968, Jocelyn Bell Burnell - along with her male supervisor and three other men - published a paper confirming the discovery of pulsars. She had built the array, picked up the signal and argued it was not an anomaly. Hewish received the Nobel prize for it in 1974: Bell Burnell did not.

In 2018 Bell Burnell received a £3m prize for her work. She's used it to set up a foundation to improve the diversity in STEM.

#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #Histodons

Ah, not a comic book buff myself, but will celebrate that on this day in 1940, the first issue of Captain America Comics was published, with this iconic cover.

"When the first issue came out we got a lot of ... threatening letters and hate mail. Some people really opposed what Cap stood for."

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_…

#CaptainAmerica #CaptainAmericaComics #comics #marvel #nazis #PunchNazis #OnThisDay #OTD