Events
1959 - The Soviet probe Luna 2 crashes onto the Moon, becoming the first man-made object to reach it.
Births
1769 - Alexander von Humboldt, German naturalist and explorer
1804 - John Gould, British ornithologist who worked on Darwin’s specimens from the voyage of H.M.S. Beagle
1849 - Ivan Pavlov, Russian scientist and Nobel Prize laureate
1909 - Peter Scott, British naturalist
1936 - Ferid Murad, American physician and Nobel Prize laureate
Deaths
1712 - Giovanni Domenico Cassini, Italian-born astronomer
1879 - Bernhard von Cotta, German geologist
More like this
Hans von Storch is a bit hard to pin down on GW: unquestionably a good scientist, but sounding oddly skeptical of late.
Many thanks to commentor Bam who alerted me to A comment by Alex Harvey: CLIMATE CHANGE ARBITRATION BIAS AT WIKIPEDIA by Hans von Storch CLIMATE CHANGE ARBITRATION BIAS AT WIKIPEDIA complete with b
February 17th
1723 - Birth of Tobias Mayer, German astronomer
Births
1723 - Tobias Mayer, German astronomer