December 28th, 2009

Today in History

1991:
Sonic the Hedgehog Game Gear version is released in Japan.

1950:
The Peak District becomes the United Kingdom's first National Park.

1897:
The play Cyrano de Bergerac, by Edmond Rostand, premieres in Paris.

1879:
The Tay Bridge Disaster: The central part of the Tay Rail Bridge in Dundee, Scotland collapses as a train passed over it, killing 75.

1612:
Galileo Galilei was the first astronomer to observe the planet Neptune when it was in conjunction with Jupiter, yet he mistakenly catalogued it as a fixed star because of its extremely slow motion along the ecliptic at that time. Neptune was not truly discovered until 1846, about 234 years after Galileo first sighted it with his telescope.