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Heron, a Greek mathmatician and engineer, thought up the first rocket, which was a spinning, spherical steam-powered device.
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It is recorded that in about 1200 CE, the Chinese were the first to use gunpowder arrows similar to rockets which they called 'fire arrows'.
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17th-century military engineers and strategists began to revisit the role of the rocket in warfare, and both the Dutch and the Germans conducted experiments with military rockets.
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In the late 17th century, Sir Isaac Newton capped the scientific revolution by developing and publishing his three laws of motion and the universal law of gravitation.
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In the late 1700s, Rajah Hyder Ali, prince of Mysore, India, used iron-case stick–rockets to defeat British troops.
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British military engineers, led by Sir William Congreve, improved the design of captured Indian rockets and developed a series of more efficient bombardment rockets. These new and improved assault rockets ranged in mass from about 8 to 136 kilograms and consisted of two basic types, the shrapnel (case-shot) rocket and the incendiary rocket.
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William Congrove's rockets were used against the US in the War of 1812.
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An American named William Hale attempted to improve the inherently low accuracy of 19th-century military rockets through a technique called spin stabilization. U.S. Army units used bombardment rockets during the Mexican-American War (e.g., the siege of Veracruz in March 1847).
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Konstantin E. Tsiolkovski was a Russian rocket theorist who supported liquid propellent rocket engines, orbital space stations, solar energy, and the colonization of the Solar System.
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Astronauts aboard the Apollo 8 mission took the first close up pictures of Earth's moon.
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Astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins landed on Earth's moon, which was considered a big leap forward in the space race.
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Apollo 14 crew members landed and started taking close pictures and examining the rocks on the moon.
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On this date the first successful mission to Mars was completed when the Viking 1 landed and took pictures of the surface.
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The Viking 2 took the second pictures of the surface of Mars. It gave a better idea of the surface than the Viking 1 because of the different position of this spacecraft.
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American astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko spend a year on the International Space Station.
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In only six hours, the unpiloted ISS Progress 61 Russian cargo ship docked to the rear port of the Zvezda Service Module on the International Space Station.
