Polio is an infectious disease spread from person to person. Polio can result in severe muscle weakness, most commonly involving the legs. In the 1950s, Jonas Salk created a polio vaccine that was used to vaccinate children across the United States. In this video, polio survivors recall coming down with … Continue reading
On February 20, 1962, John Glenn became the first American to orbit the earth, completing three orbits in just under five hours. Glenn orbited the earth as part of the Mercury Seven, who were a group of military test pilots selected by NASA in 1959 to become the first astronauts. … Continue reading
Deep Blue was a computer created by IBM to play chess. On February 10, 1996, Deep Blue played the top chess player in the world at that time, grandmaster Garry Kasparov in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Deep Blue won the first game between the two, however Kasparov came back to win the … Continue reading
Eileen Collins is a retired NASA astronaut and retired United States Air Force colonel who became the first female pilot and first female commander of a Space Shuttle. On February 3, 1995, Collins piloted the space shuttle Discovery from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida as part of mission STS-63. … Continue reading
The Apollo 11 mission landed the first humans on the moon in 1969. While on their journey, the astronauts observed an unidentified object in space. They decided not to mention this encounter until years later. In this video, Buzz Aldrin recalls what they saw.
Mike Brown is an American astronomer who is credited with discovering the dwarf planet Eris. Eris is larger than Pluto, and Brown is thus known as the man who “killed Pluto” because he furthered Pluto being downgraded to a dwarf planet.
The New Years Eve celebration held in New York’s Times Square is watched by over 1 billion people each year. This video shows some of the work that goes into the New Years Eve preparation, including information about the current iteration of the infamous Times Square New Year’s Eve ball.
Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner is the company’s most fuel-efficient airliner, designed to be 20% more fuel efficient than the Boeing 767. The Dreamliner took its maiden flight on December 15, 2009. This video shows footage from that day and discusses the testing process that the Dreamliner must go through in order … Continue reading
Smallpox was an infectious disease that caused fluid-filled blisters all over the body and had a mortality rate of 30-35%. Thanks to effective vaccination campaigns, smallpox became the first disease to be declared eradicated by the WHO on December 9, 1979. In this video, D.A. Henderson, an epidemiologist and physician … Continue reading
The Bhopal disaster, widely considered to be the world’s worst industrial disaster, was a gas leak that took place on the night of December 2, 1984, in Bhopal, India. The Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) pesticide plant exposed over half a million people to methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas.
