Historical Dates and Firsts

Chicago Pile 1 was the world's first nuclear reactor, built in 1942 by Nobel Prize winner Enrico Fermi. The reactor was built underneath the University of Chicago's Stagg Field football stadium. On Dec. 2, 1942, Enrico Fermi and 48 of his colleagues succeed in achieving in this reactor the world’s first man-made controlled nuclear chain reaction, thereby establishing the ability of mankind to control the release of nuclear energy. 

 In 1831, Cyrus McCormick invented the first mechanical reaper which could cut in one day as much as five men could cut with cradles and 16 men with sickles. 

Peking University was established in 1898 as the Imperial University of Peking, but it was reorganized and formally opened as a modern institution in 1902.

In 1770, Captain James Cook reached the east coast of Australia, making landfall at Point Hicks, and then proceeding to Botany Bay. The expedition continued northward along the Australian coastline, narrowly avoiding shipwreck on the Great Barrier Reef.

The Great Depression is widely recognized as beginning with the stock market crash in October 1929. This event triggered a global economic downturn that lasted throughout the 1930s.

Charles Darwin published 'The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex' in 1871, which further explored his theories of evolution as applied to humans.

Antibiotic production is major industrial application of microbes. Penicillin (the first antibiotic discovered) was discovered by Alexander Fleming in 1928, while working on Staphylococcus bacteria, that he observed growing in one of his unwashed petri cultures. However, its full potential as effective antibiotic was established much later by Ernest Chain and Howard Florey who got the noble prize in 1945 for this discovery.

In 1895 John Henry Knight was convicted and fined for using a motor-tricycle on the highway. He was probably the first motorist to appear in court.

The Worlds first traffic lights were installed in Detroit, USA in 1919. The first traffic lights in Britain were installed in Wolverhampton during 1928. However, they did not come to London till 1932.

The first motor-car accident in Britain resulting in the death of the driver occurred in Grive Hill, Harrow-on-the Hill, London on 25th February 1899. 

In the sixteenth century invention of automatic mechanized vehicles helped people travel from one place to another faster. The worlds first car was invented in 1769.

In 1771 the first accident involving a motor vehicle took place in Paris when Cugnot's steam tractor hit a low wall in the grounds of  the Paris arsenal. 

Box junctions, marked with yellow cross-hatching, were introduced in London during 1964. The aim was to prevent traffic blocking junctions when it could not proceed and this was successful.