Tootfinder

25 years ago #OTD I observed a long Total #SolarEclipse in #Zambia: lots of pictures in the albums https://www.geocities.ws/skyreports/zam2001/index.html = https://web.archive.org/web/20130529024154/http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/skyreports/zam2001/ and a long story (in German) in https://www.geocities.ws/skyreports/zam2001/bericht.html = https://web.archive.org/web/20120527054554/http://www.astro.uni-bonn.de/~dfischer/skyreports/zam2001/bericht.html

#OTD 2012
Lass uns Freunde sein

50 years ago #OTD NASA's #Viking1 landed on #Mars: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_1 - here is part of the first image sent from the surface. The camera was a horizontally rotating scanner moving left to right: the early vertical columns are brighter because dust from touch-down hadn't settled yet.

News story on a significant earthquake in Uzbekistan, 50 years ago, May 17, 1976 (Fargo-Moorhead Forum archives). Mentions the Medvedev scale, apparently now the the MSK or MSK-64 scale. That scale is not mentioned in North American, physical geology textbooks I have seen, although it's apparently similar to the Mercalli scale.
Also, the first page of a scientific paper on it, from 1980. ⚒️🧪
#OTD

How the #Viking1 #Mars landing 50 years ago #OTD was covered on U.S. TV news then: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDiiPhNs2Xw

15 years ago #OTD the #SpaceShuttle flew for the last time. The most elegant ship that ever carried humans to the cosmos.. and I miss her everyday.
But it's a good opportunity to remember that Atlantis namesake, the ship RV Atlantis, is still alive and working in Argentina!

RV Atlantis (1930) - Wikipedia

RE: #OTD the #cosmologist George #Lemaître died:

#OTD 2014 Cross-border rail @ Brussel-Zuid / Bruxelles-Midi
SNCB - NS - DB - SNCF

50 years ago #OTD the #Viking 1 Orbiter with its precious Lander cargo entered into orbit around #Mars: https://www.facebook.com/VikingMarsMission/posts/pfbid034yTJzsyT5ZrNHgsFeNtxrvFDRxRpFQyQfB344patQDdUr7JBCnJZgPBk9sdSuhhNl - the landing came a month later.

100 years ago #OTD the #planetarium in #Jena (Germany) opened to the public: it's the oldest one in the world srill operating in the same location! Scroll down on https://skyweek.wordpress.com/2026/07/18/die-leuchtenden-nachtwolken-sind-weiter-aktiv for some news coverage back then and the wider context.

RE: #OTD the first large #planetarium in the world opened in Wuppertal, Germany, also introducing the ant-shaped projector design which most would use for the following 3/4 century.

#OTD 2015 Grand Départ Tour de France, Utrecht

40 ago #OTD the 'Red Elvis' #DeanReed was found dead: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XdaCWyUyNQ = his cover of "Rock ‘N Roll (I Gave You The Best Years Of My Life)", my favorite version (the original https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmNHwqmYDac and the German adaptation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ns73GmANQ5c are also great) - see https://www.deanreed.de and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Reed about a remarkable life ...

#OTD 2010 Magenta Ensemble

75 years ago #OTD the #interstellar #hydrogen line at 21 cm was detected for the first time in Europe (https://sci-hub.vg/10.1038/168357a0), following the first-ever detection - in the U.S. - in March 1951 (https://sci-hub.vg/10.1038/168356a0): see https://www.astron.nl/may-11-75-years-of-the-hydrogen-line-in-the-netherlands-from-kootwijk-to-westerbork-and-ska/ for what followed.

#OTD im Jahr 1945 leisten die Befreiten den Schwur von Mauthausen: »Der Friede und die Freiheit sind die Garanten des Glücks der Völker, und der Aufbau der Welt auf neuen Grundlagen sozialer und nationaler Gerechtigkeit ist der einzige Weg zur friedlichen Zusammenarbeit der Staaten und Völker. (…) >

Kritik der Bundeswehr in der Praxis. Hier gegen die Gelöbnisfeier am 6. Mai 1980 in Bremen. #OTD https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gel�%B6bnisfeier_in_Bremen_1980