SCIENCE & INVENTION

SPUTNIK LAUNCHED

4 October 1957, Baikonur, Kazakhstan

On 4 October 1957, the Soviet Union successfully launched the first artificial satellite into space. Weighing 83.6kg and measuring 56cm in diameter, the satellite was perhaps something of a visual disappointment. Nonetheless, the launch was an unprecedented success and ushered in the age of the space race, as both the USSR and the USA rushed for greater technological advances concerning space travel. Taking 96 minutes to orbit Earth, the satellite remained in orbit until 4 January 1958. The announcement of Sputnik’s launch was made in the Russian newspaper Pravda, which stated: “Artificial earth satellites will pave the way to interplanetary travel and, apparently our contemporaries will witness how the freed and conscientious labour of the people of the new socialist society makes the most daring dreams of mankind a reality.”

SIR ISAAC NEWTON DEFINES GRAVITY

c.1665, UK

Although the famous story of an apple hitting the young man on the head and inspiring his theory is most likely a myth, Newton’s discovery of gravity was integral in the developing field of physics. His Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, in which the theories were published, is considered by many to be the greatest scientific book ever written.

FIRST POWERED FLIGHT

17 December 1903, North Carolina, USA

When Wilbur and Orville Wright achieved the first powered flight after years of experimenting with gliders they could not have imagined the world they would usher in. The explosion of aviation technology throughout World War I and the