2015: On December 22 the 70th Session of the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution proclaiming February 11th the International Day o
1809: Birth of Charles Darwin, English naturalist, author of On the Origin of Species.
1988: Erik Elst discovers asteroid 5115 and names it "Frimout", after the first Belgian astronaut Dirk Frimout, who participated in the "ATLAS" mis
1876: Alexander Graham Bell applies for a patent for the telephone, as does Elisha Gray.
1847: Death of Germinal Pierre Dandelin, Belgian mathematician (born 1794) and personal friend of Adolphe Quetelet
1996: Erik Elst discovers the asteroid 337044 and later names it "Bobdylan", after American singer, writer and peace activist Bob Dylan.
1874: Death of Adolphe Quetelet, a few days before his 78th birthday.
1677: Birth of Jacques Cassini, French astronomer and son of Giovanni Cassini, who confirmed that Saturn has rings.
1473: Birth of Nicolaus Copernicus, Polish mathematician and astronomer (died 1543).
1935: Dane Caroline Mikkelsen is the first woman to land on Antarctica.
1958: Death of Henrik Arctowski, Polish meteorologist aboard the Belgica in the service of the Observatory.
1632: Publication of Galileo's Dialogue on the two main world systems.
1828: Earthquake at Orp-Jauche with a magnitude of 5.1 (Richter). This is located in eastern Walloon Brabant.
1582: Pope Gregory XIII proclaims the Gregorian calendar. It will not take effect until October 1582.
1984: Henri Debehogne discovers the asteroid 3820 and names it after his colleague Jacques Sauval, an astrophysicist who published a comprehensive
1786: Birth of François Arago, French mathematician (died 1853).
1998: Erik Elst discovers 12 new asteroids, of which he named No 10934 after Belgian surrealist painter Paul Delvaux, and No 42609 after Belgian ma
1998: Data from the space probe Galileo indicate that Jupiter's moon Europa has a liquid ocean beneath a thick ice crust.
1879: The United States Geological Survey is founded.
1774: William Herschel begins an astronomical journal by noting his observations of Saturn's rings and the Great Orion Nebula (M42).
1512: Birth of Gerardus Mercator, Flemish cartographer (died 1594).
1869: Dmitri Mendeleev presents the first periodic table to the Russian Chemical Society.
1625: Death of Johann Bayer, German astronomer (born 1572).
1618: Johannes Kepler discovers the third law of planetary motion.
1454: Birth of Amerigo Vespucci, Italian explorer and cartographer (died 1512).
1929: A tribute engraved in the heavens. From the Uccle plateau, astronomer Eugène Delporte identifies a new asteroid.
1579: Death of Alessandro Piccolomini, Sienese astronomer and author of the famous work De le Stelle Fisse.
1899: The ship Belgica leaves Antarctica for Antwerp via South America, after surviving the first-ever forced overwintering in the souther
1985 : The first Internet domain name is registered: symbolics.com. Interestingly, the domain still exists today !
1750: Birth of Caroline Herschel, German-born English astronomer (died 1848).
1915: Photographic plates capture the future dwarf planet without anyone noticing, illustrating the difficulty of tracking distant objects in the s
1858: Mourning on the Saint-Josse Plateau. The death of Cécile Curtet marks the end of an era for Adolphe Quetelet.
1995: Cosmonaut Valery Polyakov returns to Earth's gravity after a record-breaking journey of 437 days and 18 hours (often rounded to 438) aboard t