.     Years     Events to Commemorate
.     Ago

• 30           Space shuttle Challenger explodes (1986)
• 30           Voyager 2 visits Uranus (1986)
• 35           Launch of Columbia, the first space shuttle (1981 April 12)
• 35           Voyager 2 visits Saturn (1981)
• 40           Viking probes photograph surface of Mars (1976)
• 55          American satellite Transit A crashes and kills a cow in Cuba: cow gets state funeral as a “victim of American aggression” (1961)
• 55          First quasars identified (1961)
• 55          Union Observatory renamed Republic Observatory (1961)
• 60          ASSA name change from “Astronomical Society of South Africa” to “Astronomical Society of Southern Africa” (1956)
• 65         AD Thackeray and AJ Wesselink discover RR Lyrae variables in the Magellanic Clouds (1951)
• 95         Geomagnetic storm damages communications networks worldwide (1921 May 15)
• 105        Closure of Natal Observatory due to lack of funds (1911)
• 175        Magnetic Observatory established at the Royal Observatory, Cape of Good Hope (1841)
• 180        Charles Darwin dines with John Herschel in Cape Town (1836 June 15)
• 185        Astronomical Society of London becomes the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) (1831)
• 185        John Herschel knighted (1831)
• 195        Fearon Fallows arrives in Cape Town as the first His Majesty’s Astronomer at the Cape of Good Hope (1821 August 12)
• 200        William Herschel knighted (1816)
• 215        Giuseppe Piazzi discovers first asteroid – Ceres (1801 January 01)
• 235        Charles Messiers final catalogue of nebulae is published (1781)
• 235        William Herschel discovers Uranus (1781 March 13)
• 255        Mason and DIxon observe Transit of Venus from Cape Town (1761)
• 265        Nicolas Louis de La Caille arrives in Cape Town (1751 April 19)
• 440        Tycho Brahe established his observatory at Hven (1576)

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