It’s finally Friday, October 10th, the 283rd day of the year, but what happened today in history?
In 1731, chemist and physicist, Henry Cavendish, was born today in Nice, France. He is famous for discovering hydrogen, determining that water is a compound of hydrogen and oxygen, and calculating the density of Earth with the famous Cavendish experiment using a torsion balance. His experiment is a landmark achievement in the history of science, as it allowed for the determination for the gravitational constant (G) and proved that Newton’s laws of gravitation applied on a smaller scales than previously thought. He won the prestigious Copley Medal from the Royal Society for his discoveries. He later died on February 24th, 1810, at the age of 78 years old in London, United Kingdom.
In 1913, President Woodrow Wilson triggered an explosion from the White House that broke the Gamboa Dike, effectively completing the Panama Canal and joining the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. The canal was first used on August 15th, 1914, with the SS Ancon completing the first transit. The canal was first built by the French from 1881-1889, but their efforts failed due to the lack of funding and overwhelming engineering problems, especially with the severe tropical diseases like malaria and yellow fever, and significant landsliding. In 1904, the United States took over the project after buying it from the French. From 1904-1914, the U.S. built the canal with chief engineer John Stevens who oversaw the difficulties of building the canal and utilized a shift to a sea-level canal, a lock-based design, and a crucial redesign that overcame the difficult terrain. They also built a system of massive locks that were used to raise the boat and a man-made lake to make the canal possible. President Theodore Roosevelt became the first president out of the country in 1906, when he visited the Panama Canal. The canal was under American control for a very long time until December 31st, 1999, when the United States handed control to Panama.
In 1938, the German forces completed their invasion of the Sudetenland as agreed upon by the Munich Agreement. The Munich Agreement was a pact between France, the United Kingdom, and Germany, that Germany was allowed to invade the Sudetenland, a German-speaking region of Czechoslovakia. This pact took place on September 10th, 1938 and was a prime example of appeasement to attempt to prevent another major war from occurring, but that did work until September 1st, 1939, when Germany invaded Poland. This invasion would begin Nazi occupation from 1938-1945, where thousands and thousands civilians would die from the Holocaust.
In 1967, the Outer Space Treaty was effective and banned countries from owning celestial bodies like the Moon, allowed a peaceful use of space (no military bases, no testing weapons, and military maneuvers), prohibiting the placement of nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction in orbit or on a celestial body, and that all countries are able to freely explore space. This treaty was created due to the growing tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Space Race, aiming to prevent space from becoming a new theater of war. This treaty is considered the cornerstone of international space law, establishing principles for space governance for decades to come. The UN further developed international space law with agreements addressing astronaut rescue, liability for damages, and the registration of space objects.
