Learn about the history of science by reading about the significant scientific events that took place on this day in history.
1990 - Ilya Mikhaylovich Frank died.
Idaho National Labs/DOE
Frank was a Soviet physicist and shared the 1958 Nobel Prize in Physics with Pavel A. Cherenkov and Igor Y. Tamm for the discovery and theoretical explanation of cherenkov radiation. Cherenkov radiation has a distinctive blue glow and is formed with charged particles pass through a medium where the speed of light is less than the speed the particles are moving. This discovery opened new methods of measuring the speed of relativistic particles in nuclear physics.
1906 - Fritz Richard Schaudinn died.
Wikimedia Commons
Schaudinn was a German zoologist who co-discovered with Erich Hoffmann the bacterial cause of syphilis. He also identified the amoeba that causes dysentery and confirmed hookworm infections are contracted through the skin on the feet.
1978 - Moon discovered in orbit around Pluto.
NASA/ESA
James W. Christy discovered a peculiar elongation of several photographs of Pluto that changed over time. After eliminating the possiblilities of technical flaws, he believed he found a moon orbiting close to Pluto. The moon was named Charon after the boatman who takes souls of the dead across the River Styx to the underworld of Pluto.
