Events in 2014

.      Years     Events to Commemorate
.      Ago

  • 500      Albrecht Durer creates “Melancolia I”, famous engraving featuring a bright comet (1514)
  • 410      Kepler’s Nova (1604)
  • 350      Early record of a comet from South Africa (1664)
  • 200      Joseph Fraunhofer (1787–1826) maps lines in the solar spectrum (1814)
  • 180      Thomas Maclear arrives in Cape Town to take up the directorship of the Royal Observatory (1834)
  • 180       John Herchel arrives in Cape Town and establishes his observatory at Feldhausen (1834)
  • 170      Thomas Henderson, former director of Royal Observatory, Cape, dies (Edinburgh; 1844 Nov 23)
  • 150      James Clerk Maxwell publishes his theory of electromagnetism (1864)
  • 150      Donati examines the light of a comet with a spectroscope (1864)
  • 150      William Huggins (1824–1910) shows that nebulae are gaseous (1864)
  • 140      Edward James Stone (HM Astronomer, Cape) observes a total solar eclipse (1874 Apr 16) in Namaqualand, making the first scientific spectroscopic observations in southern Africa
  • 120      AW Roberts (1857–1938) elected as Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society (1894)
  • 100      David Gill dies (London; 1914 Jun 24)
  • 100      Slipher announces large radial velocities of spiral nebula (1914)
  • 90       9-inch telescope at Union Observatory named the Reunert Telescope (1924)
  • 80       Baade and Zwicky publish their theory of neutron stars; postulate existence of pulsars (1934)
  • 60        Leiden Observatory outpost established at Hartebeeshoek (1954)
  • 60        Franklin Adams Telescope moved from Union Observatory to Hartebeeshoek (1954)
  • 50        Ranger 7 records images of the Moon’s surface (1964)
  • 50 Detection of microwave background radiation by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson (1964)
  • 50       Republic Observatory transferred to CSIR (1964)
  • 50       MRM telescope installed at Cape Observatory (1964)
  • 40       Mariner 10 photographs Mercury and Venus (1974)
  • 40        Closure of Radcliffe Observatory; 74-inch moved to Sutherland (1974)
  • 40        Michael Feast appointed director of SAAO (1974)
  • 40        Willem Hendrik van den Bos dies (Johannesburg; 1974 Mar 30)
  • 10        David S. Evans dies (Austin, Texas; 2004 Nov 14)

Visit the Events to commemorate page.