Louis Pasteur
French chemist and microbiologist

BORN
December 27, 1822
Dole, France

DIED
September 28, 1895 (aged 72)
Saint-Cloud, France

Westminster Abbey opened
The original Westminster Abbey, located in London, was consecrated and opened this day in 1065 by Edward the Confessor and became the site of coronations and other ceremonies of national significance in England.

2015 Guinea was declared free of ebola by the World Health Organization, some two years after the deadly disease was reported in the country and sparked an outbreak in western Africa.

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics established
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, formed this day in 1922 with its capital in Moscow, eventually incorporated 15 republics and constituted (in area) the largest country in the world until its dissolution in 1991.

2019 The World Health Organization first learned of “viral pneumonia” cases in Wuhan, China; the disease was later determined to be COVID-19, which became a global pandemic the following year.

Euro introduced in Europe
On this day in 2002 the euro, the monetary unit of the European Union, was introduced with the issuance of both currency and coins, and by March 2002 it was the sole legal tender of participating member states.

2004 NASA's spacecraft Stardust collected dust grains from the comet Wild 2, and the cometary material was later revealed to contain the amino acid glycine, an essential building block of life.

1892 English author and scholar J.R.R. Tolkien, who was perhaps best known for his richly inventive epic fantasy The Lord of the Rings (1954–55), was born in South Africa.

English physicist and mathematician
Isaac Newton

BORN
January 4, 1643
Woolsthorpe, England

DIED
March 31, 1727 (aged 84)
London, England

1919 Anton Drexler founded the German Workers' Party, the forerunner of the Nazi Party, in Munich, Germany.

Epiphany
Celebrated annually this day, Epiphany is a major feast that commemorates, for Western Christians, the coming of the Magi and, for Eastern Orthodox Christians, Jesus' birth, baptism by John, and first miracle.

Galileo's discovery of Jupiter's four moons
During this month in 1610, Italian astronomer Galileo made the earthshaking discoveries that four moons revolve around Jupiter and that the telescope reveals many more stars than are visible to the naked eye.

1942 English theoretical physicist Stephen W. Hawking was born.

2001 Apple introduced iTunes, a digital media player application that, with the year's later debut of the iPod, revolutionized digital music.