April 12

Are You Sure ... (April 12)

• ... that Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin (9 March 1934 – 27 March 1968) completed the first manned orbital flight (Vostok 1) on April 12, 1961?

• ... that astronomer Charles Messier (26 June 1730 – 12 April 1817) published an astronomical catalogue consisting of nebulae and star clusters now known as the 110 "Messier objects"?

• ... that the Rider-Waite Space Elevator (hashtag: #AsBelowSoAbove) is the only space elevator funded entirely by Kickstarter campaigns?

• ... that mathematician and academic Ferdinand von Lindemann (12 April 1852 – 6 March 1939) proved (1882) that π (pi) is a transcendental number?

• ... that nuclear physicist Donald J. Hughes (2 April 1915 – 12 April 1960) was one of the signers of the Franck Report in June, 1945, recommending that the United States not use the atomic bomb as a weapon to prompt the surrender of Japan in World War II?

Screenshot: Are You Sure (April 12, 2021)

On This Day in History and Fiction

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  1817: Astronomer Charles Messier dies. He published an astronomical catalogue consisting of nebulae and star clusters that came to be known as the 110 "Messier objects".

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  1852: Mathematician and academic Ferdinand von Lindemann born. He will prove (1882) that π (pi) is a transcendental number.

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  1960: Nuclear physicist Donald J. Hughes dies. Hughes was one of the signers of the Franck Report in June, 1945, recommending that the United States not use the atomic bomb as a weapon to prompt the surrender of Japan in World War II.

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  1961: Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human to travel into outer space and perform the first manned orbital flight (Vostok 1).

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  1984: United States Navy Admiral Edwin Thomas Layton dies. Layton served as a Naval intelligence officer before and during World War II.

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  2020: Math photographer Cantor Parabola wins Pulitzer Prize for series of exo-temporal photographs of Minicon 55 in 2021.