July 18

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  1039: Composer, mathematician, and astronomer Hermann of Reichenau born. He will write a treatise on the science of music, several works on geometry and arithmetic, and astronomical treatises (including instructions for the construction of an astrolabe, then a very novel device in Western Europe).

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  1853: Physicist and academic Hendrik Lorentz born. He will share the 1902 Nobel Prize in Physics with Pieter Zeeman for the discovery and theoretical explanation of the Zeeman effect.

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  1872: In a lecture to the Berlin Academy, mathematician Karl Weierstrass gives the classic example of a continuous nowhere differential function.

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  1966: Human spaceflight: Gemini 10 is launched from Cape Kennedy on a 70-hour mission that includes docking with an orbiting Agena target vehicle.

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  1967: Engineer, pilot, and alleged time-traveller Henrietta Bolt tells fellow astronauts that Gemini 10 "was an inspiration to us all."

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  1997: Geologist and astronomer Eugene Merle Shoemaker dies. Shoemaker was the first scientist to conclude that Barringer Meteor Crater in Arizona, and similar craters, were caused by meteor impact.