1820 Russian Antarctic expedition discovered the continent of Antarctica. Previous efforts to verify a continent had failed because of pack ice.
1888 Thirty-three men met in Washington D.C. Among the number were teachers, philanthropists, soldiers, lawyers, financiers, cartographers, adventurers, geographers, geologists, and more. They founded the National Geographic society for “the increase and diffusion of geographical knowledge.” The first magazine was published nine months later. When we passed the building in D.C. we were worried it would sink into the earth under the weight of all those magazines.
1924 The cadaver of Lenin was placed in Mausoleum in Red Square, Moscow. the story goes that Stalin was impressed by all the crowds that came to see the body, and so extended the viewing to a permanent exhibition. We have seen Vlady in the wax. Stalin was long gone when we visited.
1926 Scottish Inventor John Logie Baird demonstrated his televisor in a London laboratory, showing two dummies’ heads moving. Programming is pretty much the same now: dummies.
1983 The Seikan Tunnel opened, the longest underwater tunnel (53.90 km), between the Japanese islands of Honshu and Hokkaido. Such a link had been contemplated for decades. In design and technology it influence the Chunnel.
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