This Week in History
This Week in History
Hello, dear Green Forest students! Want some history in studying English? We can help you :)  5 July 1996 : Dolly the sheep is born On this day in 1996, Dolly the sheep, the first mammal to have been successfully cloned from an adult cell, is born at the Roslin Institute in Scotland. Originally code-named "6LL3," the cloned lamb was named after the buxom singer and actress Dolly Parton. The name was reportedly suggested by one of the stockmen who assisted with her birth, after he learned that the animal was cloned from a mammary cell.The cells had been taken from the udder of a six-year-old ewe and cultured in a lab using microscopic needles, in a method first used in human fertility treatments in the 1970s. After producing a number of normal eggs, scientists implanted them into surrogate ewes; 148 days later one of them gave birth to Dolly. 9 July 1877 : First Wimbledon tournament begins On 9 July 1877, the All England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club begins its first lawn tennis tournament at Wimbledon, then an outer suburb of London. Twenty-one amateurs showed up to compete in the Gentlemen's Singles tournament, the only event at the first Wimbledon. The winner was to take home a 25-guinea trophy.Tennis has its origins in a 13th-century French handball game called jeu de paume, or "game of the palm," from which developed an indoor racquet-and-ball game called real, or "royal," tennis. Real tennis grew into lawn tennis, which was played outside on grass and enjoyed a surge of popularity in the late 19th century. 18 July 1986 : New video footage of Titanic wreckage revealed On this day in 1986, new close-up videotapes of the sunken ocean liner Titanic are released to the public. Taken on the first manned expedition to the wreck, the videotapes are stunning in their clarity and detail, showing one of the ship's majestic grand staircases and a coral-covered chandelier swinging slowly in the ocean currents.At the time of its launch, the RMS Titanic was the largest ocean liner ever built, measuring nearly 900 feet long and 150 feet from its water line to its highest beam. It was considered unsinkable owing both to its vast size and its special construction. On its maiden voyage, the Titanic carried more than 2,200 people, including several of the world's most rich and famous. Its collision with an iceberg and subsequent sinking in the icy waters of the North Atlantic resulted in the deaths of some 1,500 people, many of whom could have been saved if the ship had carried a sufficient number of lifeboats. 20 July 1969 : Neil Armstrong sets foot on the Moon At 10:56 p.m. EDT, American astronaut Neil Armstrong, 240,000 miles from Earth, says these immortal words to more than a billion people listening at home: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Stepping off the lunar landing module Eagle, Armstrong became the first human to walk on the surface of the moon.The American effort to send astronauts to the moon had its origins in a famous appeal President John F. Kennedy made to a special joint session of Congress on 25 May 1961: "I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth." At the time, the United States was still trailing the Soviet Union in space developments, and Cold War-era America welcomed Kennedy's bold proposal. 25 July 1965 : Bob Dylan turns electric On this day in 1965, singer-songwriter Bob Dylan rocks the world of folk music when he abandons his acoustic guitar in favour of an electric one at the Newport Folk Festival. By going electric, Dylan eventually moved rock and folk music closer together. He also infused rock and roll, known then for its mostly lightweight lyrics, with a more intellectual, poetic sensibility.Dylan was born Robert Allen Zimmerman on 24 May 1941, in Duluth, Minnesota. Growing up, Dylan, who taught himself to play guitar, formed his own bands and was influenced by such musicians as Elvis Presley and Little Richard. As a student at the University of Minnesota, he performed folk and country music at cafes and began calling himself Bob Dylan after the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas (1914-1953). In 1960, Dylan dropped out of school and moved to New York City, where he met his idol, folk musician Woody Guthrie (1912-1967), and became involved in the Greenwich Village coffeehouse folk scene and its social protest music. 29 July 1958 : NASA is created On this day in 1958, the U.S. Congress passes legislation establishing the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), a civilian agency responsible for coordinating America's activities in space. NASA has since sponsored space expeditions, both human and mechanical, that have yielded vital information about the solar system and universe. It has also launched numerous earth-orbiting satellites that have been instrumental in everything from weather forecasting to navigation to global communications. NASA was created in response to the Soviet Union's 4 October 1957 launch of its first satellite, Sputnik I. The 183-pound, basketball-sized satellite orbited Earth in 98 minutes. The Sputnik launch caught Americans by surprise and sparked fears that the Soviets might also be capable of sending missiles with nuclear weapons from Europe to America. The United States prided itself on being at the forefront of technology, and, embarrassed, immediately began developing a response, signalling the start of the U.S.-Soviet space race. .jpg)
Created by Anya Yarmoshuk and Olya Yankova |
