#TodayInHistory – July 19

July 19 – Some important events on this day.

1595 👉🏼 Astronomer Johannes Kepler has an epiphany and develops his theory of the geometrical basis of the universe while teaching in Graz
1692 👉🏼 5 more people are hanged for witchcraft (20 in all) in Salem, Massachusetts

1843 👉🏼 The steamship SS Great Britain is launched, designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, is the first ocean-going craft with an iron hull or screw propeller and the largest vessel afloat in the world.
Designed by Britain’s greatest industrial engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the SS Great Britain was launched on this day as the first iron ship to service a transatlantic route.
When built the SS Great Britain was the largest and the longest passenger ship at 98m in service. She had both masts for sail and a 2 cylinder engine. She was launched from the Bristol dry dock and it is there she returned 127 years later in 1970, where she has been restored and turned into a museum.

1848 👉🏼 1st US women’s rights convention held in Seneca Falls NY, organised by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott
1903 👉🏼 1st Tour de France: French rider Maurice Garin wins inaugural event
1941 👉🏼 British PM Winston Churchill launches his “V for Victory” campaign
1941 👉🏼 Tom and Jerry first appear under their own names in cartoon “The Midnight Snack” by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera
1969 👉🏼 Apollo 11 goes into Moon orbit
2001 👉🏼 Michael Brunet discovers the skull of Sahelanthropus tchadensis in the Djurab Desert, Chad. One of the oldest known species in the human family tree, 6-7 million years ago years old
2017 👉🏼 US scientists calculate total amount plastic ever produced – 8.3 billion tonnes, equal to weight of 1 billion elephants

2018 👉🏼 Airbus Beluga XL, painted to look like the whale, makes its first flight, landing in Toulouse-Blagnac, France.
The Airbus Beluga XL was built to carry large airplane parts by Stelia Aerospace in Meaulte, France. It made its first test flight on this day. It is named and painted to look like the Beluga Whale, after an earlier model was nicknamed the Beluga for its resemblance to the whale.