In 1986, a cylindrical habitat named Aquarius was constructed in Texas and later deployed 62 feet underwater near Conch Reef in the Florida Keys.

In 1959, Juni Ludowici, a German inventor and engineer born in 1896, unveiled an unconventional house design: the Kugelhaus.

In 1963, Worcester-based State Mutual Life Assurance faced low employee morale after a merger. They hired freelance artist Harvey Ball to create an image to lift spirits.

When Gene Roddenberry pitched Star Trek in 1964 as a “Wagon Train to the stars,” major studios turned it down.

In 1917, three children—Lúcia dos Santos and her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto—reported six apparitions of a radiant woman in Cova da Iria, near Fátima, Portugal.

In 1917, Australian trooper Samuel Rolfe, a farmer from Inverell, was exposed to mustard gas near Albert, France.

Born near Lyon around 1772, Tarrare’s appetite was evident early. By his teens, he could eat a quarter of a bullock in one day.

On September 7, 1964, Americans saw a young girl counting daisy petals on TV—then a countdown began, followed by a nuclear explosion.

In 1975, Atari founder Nolan Bushnell offered Steve Jobs $750 to build a prototype for a new arcade game—Breakout—with a bonus for using fewer than 50 logic chips.

In 46 BC, Julius Caesar staged a battle on water without ever setting sail. He ordered a basin dug beside the Tiber River, filled it with real warships—biremes, triremes, and quinqueremes—and forced 2,000 prisoners to fight. This was the first naumachia, a brutal new form of public entertainment.