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Chinese use gunpowder rockets to scare invaders at the Battle of Kaifung-fu.
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Johann Schmidlap, firework maker, invents (what modern day engineers call) the step rocket.
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Galileo viewed Jupiter and found that it has four sattelites, which was a major finding of his time.
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In the late 17th century, Sir Isaac Newton developed and published his Three Laws of Motion and the Universal Law of Gravitation.
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The British use shrapnel (case-shot) and incendiary rockets during the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812.
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William Hale invents and patents the spin-rocket. It is used in the Mexican-American War and the Civil War.
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Jules Verne writes his fictional novel De la terre a la lune, giving people the idea that space travel was indeed possible.
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Russian schoolteacher Konstantin Tsiolkovsky writes many books and articles about rocketry and spaceflight.
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Robert Goddard begins testing solid-fuel rocket models.
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Robert Goddard publishes his paper "A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes" in which he stated that rockets would function better in space.
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Robert H. Goddard launched the world's first liquid-fueled rocket in a field in Auburn, Massachusetts.
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Shortly following Russia, America launches its' first artificial satellite, Explorer 1, into space to orbit the Earth.
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The Space Shuttle Program (STS) was retired after more than 30 years of spaceflights
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Spacex launches their Falcon 9 and Dragon spacecraft.
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The New Horizons spacecraft flies by Pluto, taking lots of spectacular photos.