In 1998 four hundred people died, many of them women and children, in an Islamic attack in Algeria. Several attacks took place using home made explosives with survivors shot or attacked with axes, knives, swords.
In 1986 ‘The Gateway Bridge’ in Brisbane, Australia opened after six years of construction. Another identical bridge was built and opened in May 2010 the pair of bridges are officially known as the ‘Sir Leo Hielscher Bridges’.
In 1973 the first Open University degrees have been awarded. The Open University allows its students to study from home and gain the same qualifications they could at a normal university. After starting just two years ago the OU has become the largest university in England with more than 40,000 students on their books. Out of the 1,000 students that took the two year degree courses, an impressive 867 students were successful.
In 1962 an estimated 4,000 people died in a devastating avalanche in Peru. Millions of tons of rocks, snow and mud slid down the side of Peru’s highest peak, the extinct volcano Huascaran which is part of the Andes mountain Range.
In 1908 the Grand Canyon is declared a national landmark by US President Theodore Roosevelt.
In 1789 William Herschel discovered two of Uranus’s moons, Titania and Oberon
William Herschel was born in Hanover, Germany on the 15th of November 1738. He moved to England at the age of nineteen with his brothers after serving in the German army. He became an accomplished composer and could play many instruments. His love of music led him to maths, then into the construction of telescopes (building over 400) and inevitably he became interested in astronomy. On a Newtonian telescope he began studying twin stars and catalogued many new discoveries. One object he studied, believing it to be a star, seemed to move in planetary orbit and once this was confirmed that is was a planet just out from Saturn, Herschel named it ‘Georgium Sidus’ or Georgian Star after King George III of England. The Name was not accepted by many, particularly the French who named the Planet ‘Herschel’ and later German Astronomer Johan Bode suggested the name ‘Uranus’, following the tradition of mythical gods. Herschel also discovered two of Uranus’s moons, Titania and Oberon, on 11th of January 1787 as well as two of Saturn’s moons, Enceladus and Mimas on the 28th of August 1789 and 17th of September 1789 respectively. He also calculated that the Milky Way was disc shaped and made many more discoveries.
