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The English astronomer Sir Isaac Newton publishes the Philosophae Naturalis Principia Mathematica.
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The British mathematician William Moore publishes Treatise on the Motion of Rockets. This work features the first exposition of rocket mechanics based on Newton's third law of motion.
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U.S. rocket scientist Robert H. Goddard launches the first liquid fueled rocket from his Aunt Effie's farm in Auburn, Massachusetts.
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The U.S. military achieves its first high-altitude space flight using a rebuilt German V-2 rocket.
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The spacecraft contained a pressurized container that housed a dog named Laika.
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Tiros 1, the first successful weather satellite, is launched by the United States. Two television cameras in the satellite returned views of clouds above the Earth.
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Russian Cosmonaut Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin became the first human to venture into space.
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On May 5, 1961, Astronaut Alan Shepard became the first American to be launched into space.
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Apollo 11 makes the first successful soft landing on the Moon. Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, Jr. become the first human beings to set foot on another world.
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The Soviet Venera 7 is the first probe to soft-land on Venus, transmitting for 23 minutes.
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The Salyut 1 space station is launched by the Soviet Union and become the first space station in orbit.
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The first manned mission of the Space Transportation System, Columbia, is launched.
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The Galileo spacecraft arrives at Jupiter and a probe is dropped into the planet's atmosphere.
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The total time spent in space is 8 hours 56 minutes.
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The space shuttle Atlantis becomes the last American space shuttle to be launched into space.
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NASA's Curiosity rover successfully lands on Mars. It is the largest and most advanced rover ever to land on the red planet.
