First human cannonball
The first human cannonball was `Zazel’ in 1877, when she was shot a distance of about 6.1 m (30 ft) at Westminster Aquarium, London, UK.
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First human-led bird migration
In late 1993, two ‘artists turned naturalists’, William Lishman (USA) and Joseph Duff (USA), used two ultralight aircraft to guide 18 Canada Geese 644 km (400 mi) from Ontario, Canada, to Virginia, USA, in the first ever human-led bird migration. The flight was part of research to find out if birds could be ‘taught’ to follow safe migratory routes. A film based on Lishman and Duff’s work, Fly Away Home (Columbia Pictures), was made in 1996.
First human to be killed by a robot
On 25 January 1979, Robert Williams (USA) was struck in the head and killed by the arm of a 1-ton production-line robot in a Ford Motor Company casting plant in Flat Rock, Michigan, USA, becoming the first fatal casualty of a robot. The robot was part of a parts-retrieval system that moved material from one part of the factory to another; when the robot began running slowly, Williams reportedly climbed into the storage rack to retrieve parts manually when he was struck in the head Continue reading →
First Identified Impact Crater
The Barringer Meteorite Crater (also known as Meteor Crater), in Arizona, USA, is a hole in the ground measuring around 1.2 km (0.74 mile) wide and 173 m (570 ft) deep. It was first proposed to be the result of a meteorite impact in 1891 but was believed to be of volcanic origin by many geologists until US geologist Eugene Shoemaker compared the crater’s anatomy with that of craters produced by nuclear weapons testing in Nevada in 1963. Geologists now believe the iron meteorite that Continue reading →
First hymn
There are more than 950,000 Christian hymns in existence. The music and parts of the text of a hymn in the Oxyrhynchus Papyri from the 2nd century are the earliest known hymnody. The earliest exactly datable hymn is the Heyr Himna Smi¢ur (Hear, the Maker of Heaven) from 1208 by the Icelandic bard and chieftain Kolbeinn Tumason (1173-1208).
First hybrid of a camel x llama
On 14 January 1998, at the Camel Reproduction Center (CRC) situated in the Arabian desert within Dubai, UAE, a long-term project headed by chief scientific officer Dr Julian A. (Lulu) Skidmore (UK) finally came to fruition with the birth of Rama, the world’s first hybrid of camel and llama, known as a cama. Rama was a male specimem, and both of his progenitor species belong to the camel family, but could never have encountered one another in the wild. This is because his father was Continue reading →
First human-sheep chimera
In March 2007, Prof. Esmail Zanjani from the University of Nevada (USA) announced that he and his research team had created the world´s first human-sheep chimaera, i.e. a sheep that contains sheep cells and human cells. 85 per cent of its cells are sheep, the remaining 15 per cent are human, and its creation brings ever closer to reality the prospect of animal organs being transplanted into humans. Zanjani and his team have spent seven years and £5 million perfecting the technique required to produce Continue reading →
First indentical snow crystals
A common-used statement about snow is that two snowflakes are never alike. However, in 1988 Nancy Knight (USA), a scientist at the National Center for Atmosphere Research in Boulder, Colorado, USA, found two identical examples while studying snow crystals from a storm in Wisconsin, using a microscope.
First impact on a comet
On 4 July 2005 a 350-kg copper ‘bullet’, release from NASA’s Deep Impact spacecraft, slammed into the surface of comet Tempel 1 at a velocity of 10.3 km/s. The impact, which was the equivalent of 4.7 tonnes of TNT, created an enormous ejecta plume and a crater on the comet around 100 m wide and 30 m deep.
First individual to record 20,000 points, 8,000 assists and 2,000 steals in an NBA career
Gary Payton (USA), playing for the Boston Celtics (USA), scored his 20,000th career point against the Portland Trailblazers (USA), on 10 November 2004, to become the only player in NBA history to record 20,000 points, 8,000 assists and 2,000 steals during a career.