PreviousDays✦THE WIKI
← All historyTHE ARCHIVE · 18 STORIES

1946–1999

Giant leaps. Divided worlds. New beginnings.

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MOMENTS FROM THIS ERA

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18 illustrated stories · growing daily
A cream-coloured cluster of spacecraft airbags bounces above a rocky Martian plain.Science & discoveries

Mars Pathfinder's airbag landing on 4 July 1997

NASA's Pathfinder reached Mars inside inflated airbags, bouncing across the surface before opening to release the small Sojourner rover.

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A white-faced lamb stands beside a black-faced surrogate ewe in a straw-lined research-farm pen.Science & discoveries

Dolly the sheep is born at the Roslin Institute

Born on 5 July 1996, Dolly demonstrated that an adult mammal's specialised cell could provide the nuclear information needed to develop a new animal.

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Original reconstruction: amber light falls across a ship's wet desk, blank cargo folder and loose lashing; rough teal seas and a container appear through the window. Illustrative reconstruction: a folded North Pacific map has two brass pins joined by red thread, suggesting a journey from open ocean to southeastern Alaska. Original reconstruction: a small scuffed red plastic beaver bath toy rests among wet pebbles and driftwood on an Alaskan shore. Original reconstruction: a weathered yellow plastic duck, blue turtle and green frog sit on cream paper on an oceanographer's desk.Science & discoveries

The Friendly Floatees spill: bath toys as ocean tracers

A North Pacific cargo accident on 10 January 1992 released thousands of plastic bath toys. Their subsequent discovery on beaches gave oceanographers an unusual source of evidence about surface currents and the movement of floating debris.

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A fossil hunter examines large vertebrae emerging from an eroded South Dakota bluff.Science & discoveries

Sue Hendrickson discovers the T. rex SUE

A flat truck tyre interrupted a South Dakota fossil expedition on 12 August 1990. Sue Hendrickson used the delay to investigate a promising bluff.

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A cylindrical spacecraft approaches an irregular comet nucleus amid streams of illuminated gas and dust.Science & discoveries

Giotto's closest approach to Halley's Comet, 14 March 1986

ESA's Giotto passed 596 kilometres from Halley's nucleus just after midnight UTC. Its protected instruments helped turn a distant glowing comet into an observable physical world of dark terrain and escaping gas and dust.

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An astronaut with a manoeuvring backpack floats untethered above Earth's curved horizon beside a distant shuttle.Science & discoveries

Bruce McCandless makes the first untethered space flight, 7 February 1984

Bruce McCandless flew freely outside Challenger using a nitrogen-propelled backpack. The carefully tested manoeuvring unit let him leave the shuttle without a connecting tether while remaining in essentially the same orbit.

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A laboratory technician works beside a shallow glass culture dish, a glass incubator and a period microscope.Science & discoveries

Louise Brown’s birth and the first successful IVF treatment

Louise Brown was born on 25 July 1978 after conception through in vitro fertilisation. Her birth demonstrated that a human embryo formed outside the body could lead to a successful pregnancy.

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Two Somali health workers study a contact diagram beside a vaccine carrier in a modest coastal clinic.Science & discoveries

Somalia’s Last Natural Smallpox Case and the Verification of Eradication

WHO records the final naturally occurring smallpox case in Merka, Somalia, on 26 October 1977. The milestone became meaningful through continued surveillance, containment and the later international certification process.

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A Titan rocket rises beside its launch gantry above smoke, with water and marsh grass in the foreground.Science & discoveries

Voyager 1 launches toward Jupiter and Saturn

Voyager 1 launched on 5 September 1977, beginning a mission that used planetary gravity to visit the giant planets and carried a cultural message from Earth.

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A metallic lander footpad rests on granular, rock-strewn Martian ground beneath a dusty sky.Science & discoveries

Viking 1’s first photograph from the surface of Mars

On July 20, 1976, Viking 1 landed on Mars and sent back a close view of rocks, soil and one of its own footpads. The apparently modest scene established a new ground-level view of the planet and provided practical scientific evidence.

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Dusty hands examine a small fossil fragment above an eroded Ethiopian gully.Science & discoveries

Discovery of Lucy at Hadar in Ethiopia

Lucy’s fossil remains were discovered at Hadar, Ethiopia, on November 24, 1974. Her combination of upright-walking anatomy and a small brain helped clarify that key features of human evolution emerged at different times.

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Two farmers examine an ancient clay head beside a newly dug rural well.Science & discoveries

Farmers uncover the Terracotta Army near Xi’an in 1974

A well-digging project at Lintong on 29 March 1974 uncovered terracotta fragments. Archaeological work revealed an extraordinary funerary army and opened new ways to study the resources, workshops and organisation of China’s first imperial state.

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