Specialty Digest · Visual Stories This Day in History October 4 1957 Sputnik 1 Opens the Space Age A beeping metal sphere launched from a desert in Soviet Kazakhstan convinced the United States, almost overnight, that it was losing a race it had not known was underway. Replica of Sputnik 1, Missile & Space Gallery,
This Day in History, October 4: Sputnik 1 Opens the Space Age Read More »
A beeping metal sphere launched from a desert in Soviet Kazakhstan convinced the United States, almost overnight, that it was losing a race it had not known was underway.
Specialty Digest · Visual Stories This Day in History September 28 1066 William the Conqueror Lands in England A duke with a disputed claim to a foreign throne rowed ashore at a quiet English bay, and within three weeks a king was dead and a country’s ruling class had changed for good. Bayeux Tapestry, 11th
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A duke with a disputed claim to a foreign throne rowed ashore at a quiet English bay, and within three weeks a king was dead and a country's ruling class had changed for good.
Specialty Digest · Visual Stories This Day in History September 27 1822 Champollion Deciphers Egyptian Hieroglyphs A French scholar who had never set foot in Egypt spent years comparing one royal decree carved in three scripts, and gave the world back three thousand years of Egyptian history that no one alive could read. Photo: APK,
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A French scholar who had never set foot in Egypt spent years comparing one royal decree carved in three scripts, and gave the world back three thousand years of Egyptian history that no one alive could read.
Specialty Digest · Visual Stories This Day in History September 24 1957 Eisenhower Sends Troops to Integrate Little Rock When a governor called out the National Guard to keep Black students out of a Little Rock high school, the President answered by sending in the U.S. Army to walk them through the door. U.S. Army,
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When a governor called out the National Guard to keep Black students out of a Little Rock high school, the President answered by sending in the U.S. Army to walk them through the door.
Specialty Digest · Visual Stories This Day in History September 23 1846 Humanity Discovers Neptune A mathematician who never once looked through a telescope pointed two astronomers at an empty patch of sky, and they found a planet nobody had ever seen. NASA / Voyager 2, Great Images in NASA (GPN-2000-000443) · Public Domain What
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A mathematician who never once looked through a telescope pointed two astronomers at an empty patch of sky, and they found a planet nobody had ever seen.
WORLD IN A DAY · SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2026 An AI chip startup’s valuation jumped fivefold in six months, on the same day regulators opened a probe into whether a rival’s biggest deal was built to dodge them. Elsewhere, three research teams found nature keeps more of its own history recoverable than expected, in a
WORLD IN A DAY · FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2026 Twenty-five years after the September 11 attacks, a months-long war between the US and Iran is now the thing setting fuel prices worldwide, while researchers this week found answers by looking back four thousand years and out toward another star system. BUSINESS Brent Crude Tops $107
WORLD IN A DAY · THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2026 Six stories worth five minutes: Nvidia makes its biggest acquisition ever, a UN report concedes the world’s flagship climate target will likely be missed, and a Bronze Age Egyptian official’s tomb resurfaces after four thousand years underground. Technology Nvidia to Buy Hugging Face for $12.9 Billion
The Black Death was caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, spread by infected fleas riding on rats, and it reached Europe by traveling the same trade routes that carried silk and spices out of Central Asia. Within about five years of its arrival, roughly a third of Europe’s population was dead, faster than medieval society
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A rodent bacterium and its fleas traveled the same trade routes as silk and spices, killing a third of Europe in five catastrophic years.
The Berlin Wall didn’t fall because any government decided to open it. It fell because a confused answer to a reporter’s question, on the night of November 9, 1989, collided with years of Soviet retreat, mass defections and street protests that had already pushed East Germany to the edge. The popular image is a triumphant,
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The Wall fell not by government decree but through Soviet retreat, mass defections, and a spokesman's confused answer at a press conference.