13 MARCH 1781
William Herschel discovers Uranus
The polymath spies the seventh planet from the sun
On the night of 13 March 1781, William Herschel ventured into his garden at 19 New King Street in Bath, Somerset, and peered through his 6.2-inch reflecting telescope. It was a regular ritual for the composer and self-taught astronomer, but this time he noticed something different. There, in the night sky, was a strange object that he had never seen before, which he believed to be "either [a] nebulous star or perhaps a comet".
Unbeknownst to Herschel, the object had been sighted before: in 1690, England's first astronomer royal, John Flamsteed, had catalogued the hazy glow as the star '34 Tauri' during his own observations. But believing his find to be unique, Herschel immediately set about spreading news of his discovery, and became ever more convinced of his comet theory when he noticed that the object appeared to move in relation to the surrounding stars.
By 1783, however, Herschel had changed his mind: the object's lack of a characteristic tail, and the plotting of its orbit as near circular, rather than elliptical, suggested it wasn't a comet at all. In fact, the polymath realised that it was actually the solar system's seventh planet, and he named it Georgium Sidus ("George's Star') in honour of the monarch, George III. Nevertheless, it would later become better known as Uranus, after the Greek god who fathered the Titans.
29 MARCH 1974
The Terracotta Army is unearthed
An incredible discovery is made in the Chinese countryside
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