1749: The birth of "determinism" with Pierre-Simon de Laplace.

1820: Birth of Alexandre-Edmond Becquerel, French physicist (died 1891).

1539: Birth of Christopher Clavius, German mathematician (died 1612).

1933: Discovery of asteroid 19911 by Ferdinand Rigaux. Following his death, the object was named in his honour, an exceptional occurrence.

1897: Departure of François Folie, Director of the Observatory during its construction and its relocation to Uccle.

1802: Heinrich Wilhelm Matthäus Olbers discovers 2 Pallas, the second known asteroid (after Ceres in 1801).

1974: NASA's Mariner 10 probe performs the first flyby of Mercury. It had been launched on 3 November 1973.

240 BC: First documented perihelion passage (its closest point to the Sun) of Halley’s Comet.

1596: Birth of René Descartes, French mathematician (died 1650).

1808: Birth of Mélanie de Lannuyer, half-sister of Adolphe Quetelet.

1527: Birth of Abraham Ortelius, cartographer and geographer.

1973: The first mobile phone call was made in New York.

1996: The American probe NEAR Shoemaker photographs Comet Hyakutake during its transit towards the asteroid Eros.

1804: The High Possil meteorite. The first documented meteorite fall in Scotland, occurring at High Possil near Glasgow.

1965: Launch of Early Bird (Intelsat I), the first commercial communication satellite in geostationary orbit.

1795: France adopts the metre as the basic unit of length.

1991: During this night, Erik Elst discovers 31 asteroids, including "Machu Picchu", "Carnot", and "Buxus".

1835: Birth of Leopold II, the King whose construction projects for Brussels also provided the impetus for the new observatory at Uccle (a site tha

1868: Birth of Paul Stroobant, Director of the Observatory from 1925 to 1936.

1970: The launch of NASA's third lunar mission turns into a technological nightmare following the explosion of an oxygen tank.

1633: The Inquisition's trial against Galileo begins.

1974: Western Union, in collaboration with NASA and Hughes Aircraft, launches Westar 1, the first commercial geostationary communication satellite

1629: Birth of Christiaan Huygens, the Dutch mathematician, astronomer, and physicist (died 1695).

1452: Birth of Leonardo da Vinci, the universal genius of the Italian Renaissance (died 1519).

1495: Birth of Petrus Apianus (Peter Bienewitz), German mathematician, astronomer, and cartographer (died 1552).

1996: Discovery of the asteroid (7537) Solvay by the Belgian astronomer Eric Elst.

1955: Death of Albert Einstein, the German-born theoretical physicist (born 1879).

1967: The American lander Surveyor 3 achieves a soft landing in the Ocean of Storms.

1972: Apollo 16 lands on the lunar highlands.

1557: Death of Petrus Apianus.

1970: Celebration of the first Earth Day.

1858: Birth of Max Planck, the father of the quantum era. His discovery of energy quanta transformed our ability to manipulate matter and light.

1990: Launch of the Hubble Space Telescope by the shuttle Discovery.

2018: Second major data release from the Gaia space telescope.

1986: The Chernobyl nuclear disaster (Ukraine), the most severe in history.

2002: Reception of the final transmission from Pioneer 10, concluding thirty years of scientific breakthroughs.

1902: The billionth minute of the modern era (according to the ISO 8601 standard) is reached on 1 January at 10:40 am.

1699: The French Academy of Sciences holds its first official meeting under its new royal statutes.

1006: Recording of the SN 1006 supernova, the stellar event with the highest apparent magnitude ever documented (estimated at -7.5).

1930: The planet Pluto, discovered a few months earlier, officially receives its name.