Focus On: (38083) Rhadamanthus

Basics

Class: TNO
Location: Kuiper belt
Orbit length (approx): 241.61 years
Discovered: 17th April 1999, 03:19 UTC, from National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO) in Arizona, by the Deep Ecliptic Survey.
Notes: Was originally thought to be a plutino but it turns out this is not the case.
Events at time of discovery:

• April 14 – Kosovo War: NATO warplanes repeatedly bomb ethnic Albanian refugee convoys for 2 hours over a 12-mile stretch of road, after mistaking them for Yugoslav military trucks, between Đakovica and Dečani in western Kosovo, killing at least 73 refugees.
• April 17 – Death of Julian Cole, 74, American mathematician
• – Death of Ahmad bin Mohamed Ibrahim, 82, Singaporean lawyer and law professor
• April 20 – Columbine High School massacre.

Leap of Faith

We live in precarious times. The Doomsday Clock has just been moved on again, and now stands at 90 seconds to midnight, the closest it has ever been since its creation. The inertia of the powerful in the face of global warming and a struggle for democracy is deeply troubling. We stand on the brink of changes we cannot control, and we have no idea whether we shall eventually fly or fall.

Amid this crisis come two major planetary shifts in 2023. The first is Pluto's initial foray into Aquarius from Capricorn, taking place near the Aries equinox on 23rd March. Pluto spends a few months here before retrograding back into Capricorn on 11th June; then, a few days later as the Northern solstice approaches, an object named Sedna enters Gemini.

You might or might not have heard of Sedna, named after an Inuit water goddess and discovered in 2003. It has an orbital period of approximately 11,400 years, and is currently very near perihelion - as close as it gets to the Sun - meaning that from our perspective it's travelling relatively fast. In any case, it leaves Taurus (where it first arrived in 1966) and enters Gemini on 15th June. After a brief trip back, it'll finally settle in Gemini next year, and stay there for the next four decades, according to current calculations.

Welcome to the café

Hi! I'm Theano, an astrology student who's been at it for longer than I care to remember. I've skulked on the edge of the internet for quite some time now, and it would seem I am finally ready to take the plunge and actually discuss astrological phenomena in my own voice. We'll see how that goes. :)

Focus On: (20000) Varuna

Basics

Class: IR-type cubewano, probably a dwarf planet
Location: Kuiper belt
Orbit length (approx): 280.76 years
Discovered: 28th November 2000 at 09:51 UTC, from Kitt Peak Observatory in Arizona by Spacewatch (Robert McMillan)
Events at time of discovery:

• November 20 – Alberto Fujimori, President of Peru, faxes his resignation from a hotel room in Japan, having fled Peru after facing corruption charges. Fujimori would be officially removed from office by Congress on the 22nd.
• November 28 – Death of Gregg Barton, 88, American actor
• – Death of Robert Bentley, 93, American animator
• – Death of Liane Haid, 105, Austrian actress

Focus On: (6235) Burney

Basics

Class: Asteroid
Location: Main belt
Orbit length (approx): 3.36 years
Discovered: 14th November 1987 at 10:29 UTC, from the Kushiro Observatory, Hokkaido, Japan, by Seiji Ueda and Hiroshi Kaneda
Events at time of discovery:

• November 14 – Birth of Sofia Assefa, Ethiopian middle-distance runner
• November 15 – In Braşov, Romania, workers rebel against the communist regime led by Nicolae Ceauşescu.

Focus On: (3811) Karma

Basics

Class: Asteroid
Location: Main belt, Karma family
Orbit length (approx): 4.14 years
Discovered: 13th October 1953, 22:19 UTC, Iso-Heikkilä Observatory, Turku, Finland, by Liisi Oterma
Events at time of discovery:

• October 12 – Birth of Les Dennis, British comedian and television presenter
• October 13 – Herman Wouk's play The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial premièred at the Granada Theatre in Santa Barbara, California (at Plymouth Theatre, New York, the previous day).
• October 14 – Birth of Greg Evigan, American actor
• – Birth of Shelley Ackerman, American astrologer, actress, writer

Focus On: (3361) Orpheus

Basics

Class: Asteroid
Location: Near Earth, Apollo group
Orbit length (approx): 1.33 years
Discovered: 24th April 1982, 07:12 UTC, from Cerro El Roble Astronomical Station, Chile, by Carlos Torres
Events at time of discovery:

• April 24 – German singer Nicole wins the Eurovision Song Contest 1982 (held in Britain) with the song Ein Bisschen Frieden.
• – Death of Ville Ritola, Finnish Olympic athlete
• – Birth of Kelly Clarkson, American singer-songwriter, talk show host
• – Birth of David Oliver, American hurdler

Focus On: (1923) Osiris

Basics

Class: C-type asteroid
Location: Inner main belt
Orbit length (approx): 3.80 years
Discovered: 24th September 1960, 09:01 UTC, from Leiden, Netherlands, by Ingrid and Cornelis Johannes van Houten (on photographic plates taken by Tom Gehrels at Palomar Observatory)
Events at time of discovery:

• September 22 – Birth of Scott Baio, American actor
• September 24 – The Howdy Doody Show presented its 2,343rd and final episode, after a run that started on NBC on December 27, 1947. After the marionette Howdy Doody, and host Buffalo Bob Smith, gave their farewells, Clarabell the Clown – who had never spoken – surprised his audience by saying, "Goodbye, kids."
• – USS Enterprise, the first atomic-powered aircraft carrier in history, and the largest ship ever built up to that time, was launched at Newport News, Virginia.
• September 25 – Birth of Eduardo Yáñez, Mexican film and television actor

Focus On: (1566) Icarus

Basics

Class: S-type/Q-type asteroid
Location: Near Earth, Apollo group
Orbit length (approx): 1.12 years
Discovered: 27th June 1949, 05:44 UTC, from Palomar Observatory, CA, by Walter Baade.
Notes: Icarus has an extremely eccentric orbit (0.83) and measures approximately 1.4 km in diameter. In 1968, it became the first asteroid ever observed by radar. Lowest numbered potentially hazardous asteroid (PHA).
Events at time of discovery:

• June 27 – The 1949 Australian coal strike began.
• – The Liberal Party of Canada led by Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent was easily returned to power in the Canadian federal election.
• – Czechoslovakia banned pastoral letters and meetings of Catholic church officials that were not approved by the government.
• – The science fiction TV series Captain Video and His Video Rangers premiered.
• – Birth of Vera Wang, American fashion designer
• – Birth of Stephen Rucker, television and film composer

Focus On: (490) Veritas

Basics

Class: Ch-type asteroid
Location: Main belt
Orbit length (approx): 5.66 years
Discovered: 4th September 1902 at 00:20 UTC, from Heidelberg, Germany, by Max Wolf
Events at time of discovery:

• September 2 – Birth of Peter Pitseolak, Inuit photographer & author
• September 3 – U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt narrowly escaped death in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, after a streetcar collided with the carriage in which he was riding. Roosevelt's bodyguard, agent William Craig, was killed.
• September 4 – The first completely electric railway line, the Ferrovia della Valtellina, began operations in Italy.
• – The Absaroka National Forest was established in the U.S. state of Montana.
• – Edward Elgar's Opus 43, Dream Children, was played for the first time.
• events
• September 5 – Birth of Darryl F. Zanuck, American film producer and studio executive

Focus On: (474) Prudentia

Basics

Class: Asteroid
Location: Main belt
Orbit length (approx): 3.84 years
Discovered: 13th February 1901 at 22:27 UTC, from Heidelberg, Germany, by Max Wolf
Events at time of discovery:

• February 13 – William McKinley is formally declared the winner of the 1900 U.S. presidential election.
• – At the Mengo Hospital in Uganda, two doctors first note the outbreak of what would become an epidemic of African trypanosomiasis, or "sleeping sickness".
• – Birth of Paul Lazarsfeld, Austrian-American sociologist, founder of the Bureau of Applied Social Research at Columbia University
• – Birth of Lewis Grassic Gibbon (pen name for James Leslie Mitchell), Scottish novelist

Focus On: (433) Eros

Basics

Class: S-type asteroid
Location: Near Earth object, part of the Amor group
Orbit length (approx): 1.76 years
Discovered: 13th August 1898 (time unknown), from Berlin, Germany, by Carl Gustav Witt
Notes: Second-largest Near-Earth Object. Visited by the NEAR Shoemaker space probe in 1998, it became the first asteroid ever studied from orbit.
Events at time of discovery:

• August 11 – Birth of Maria Klenova, Russian marine geologist
• August 13 – Birth of Regis Toomey, American actor
• August 15 – Birth of Jan Brzechwa, Polish poet
• August 20 – The Gornergrat railway opens, connecting Zermatt to the Gornergrat in Switzerland.
• August 23 – The Southern Cross Expedition, the first British venture of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, sets sail from London.

Focus On: (399) Persephone

Basics

Class: X-type asteroid
Location: Main belt
Orbit length (approx): 5.33 years
Discovered: 23rd February 1895, 21:43 UTC, by Max Wolf at Heidelberg

Some notable events around time of discovery:

• February 6 – Birth of Babe Ruth, American baseball player
• February 14 – Birth of Max Horkheimer, German philosopher, sociologist
• February 21 – Birth of Henrik Dam, Danish biochemist, Nobel Prize recipient
• February 25 – The first rebellions of the Cuban War of Independence break out.

Focus On: (269) Justitia

Basics

Class: Ld-type asteroid
Location: Main belt
Orbit length (approx): 4.23 years
Discovered: 21st September 2024 (time unknown), from Vienna, Austria, by Johann Palisa
Events at time of discovery:

• August 3 – Birth of Rupert Brooke, British war poet
• August 12 – Birth of Erwin Schrödinger, Austrian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
• September 13 – Birth of Leopold Ružička, Croatian chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
• September 16 – Birth of Nadia Boulanger, French composer and composition teacher
• September 26 – Birth of William Barnard Rhodes-Moorhouse, British aviator, first airman to receive the Victoria Cross
• September 28 – The 1887 Yellow River flood begins in China, killing 900,000 to 2,000,000 people.

Focus On: (164) Eva

Basics

Class: CX-type asteroid
Location: Main belt
Orbit length (approx): 4.27 years
Discovered: 12th July 1876 (time unknown), from Paris, France, by Paul-Pierre and Prosper-Mathieu Henry
Notes: Mean radius of just over 100km and the closest of this size to approach the orbit of Mars.
Events at time of discovery:

• July 3 – Birth of George Murray Levick, British Antarctic explorer and naval surgeon
• July 4 – The United States Centennial Exposition is celebrated across the country.
• July 12 – Birth of Max Jacob, French poet
• – Birth of Alphaeus Philemon Cole, American artist, engraver, etcher and supercentenarian
• July 13 – The prosecution of Arthur Tooth, an Anglican clergyman, for using ritualist practices begins.

Focus On: (114) Kassandra

Basics

Class: Asteroid
Location: Main belt
Orbit length (approx): 4.38 years
Discovered: 23rd July 1871 (time unknown) at Litchfield Observatory, Clinton, NY, by Christian Heinrich Friedrich Peters
Events at time of discovery:

• July 10 – Birth of Marcel Proust, French writer
• July 20 – C. W. Alcock proposes that "a Challenge Cup should be established in connection with the Association", giving birth to the FA Cup for Association football in England.
• July 21-August 26 – The first ever photographs of Yellowstone National Park region are taken by William Henry Jackson, during the Hayden Geological Survey of 1871.
• August 9 – A rare major hurricane causes significant damage on the islands of Hawaii and Maui.
• August 13 – Birth of Karl Liebknecht, German politician

Focus On: (100) Hekate

Basics

Class: S-type asteroid
Location: Main belt, Hecuba group
Orbit length (approx): 5.43 years
Discovered: 11th July 1868 (time unknown), from Ann Arbor, Michigan, by James Craig Watson
Notes: Large asteroid, diameter approx 87km.
Events at time of discovery:

• July 4 – Birth of Henrietta Swan Leavitt, American astronomer
• July 9 – The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified.
• July 14 – Birth of Gertrude Bell, English archaeologist, writer, spy and administrator
• July 18 – The Navajo people begin their long march home.

Focus On: (74) Galatea

Basics

Class: C-type asteroid
Location: Main belt
Orbit length (approx): 4.64 years
Discovered: 29th August 1862 (time unknown), from Marseille, France, by Ernst Wilhelm Tempel
Notes: Very dark in colour.
Events at time of discovery:

• August 22 – Birth of Claude Debussy, French composer
• August 24 – Birth of Zonia Baber, American geographer and geologist
• August 28-30 – American Civil War: Second Battle of Bull Run and Battle of Richmond, Kentucky.

Focus On: (58) Concordia

Basics

Class: C-type asteroid
Location: Main belt
Orbit length (approx): 4.43 years
Discovered: 24th March 1860 (time unknown), from Düsseldorf, Germany, by Robert Luther
Events at time of discovery:

• March 22 – The Grand Duchy of Tuscany is annexed to the newly formed Kingdom of Italy.
• April 2 – The first Italian Parliament meets at Turin.
• April 3 – The Pony Express begins its first run.
• May 1 – A Chondrite-type meteorite falls to earth in Muskingum County, Ohio, near the town of New Concord.
• May 9 – Birth of J. M. Barrie, Scottish author

Focus On: (57) Mnemosyne

Basics

Class: S-type asteroid
Location: Main belt
Orbit length (approx): 5.60 years
Discovered: 22nd September 1859 (time unknown) from Düsseldorf by Robert Luther
Events at time of discovery:

• September 7 – Birth of Margaret Crosfield, British palaeontologist, geologist
• October 6 – Birth of Frank Seiberling, American inventor, co-founder of Goodyear
• October 16 – John Brown raids the Harpers Ferry Armory.
• October 20 – Birth of John Dewey, American philosopher, psychologist and educator
• November 24 – Charles Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species.

Focus On: (55) Pandora

Basics

Class: M-type asteroid
Location: Main belt
Orbit length (approx): 4.58 years
Discovered: 10th September 1858 (time unknown), from Albany, NY, by George Mary Searle
Events at time of discovery:

• August 16 – U.S. President James Buchanan inaugurates the new trans-Atlantic telegraph cable
• October 3 – Birth of Eleonora Duse, Italian actress
• October 19 – Birth of George Albert Boulenger, Belgian naturalist
• October 27 – Birth of Theodore Roosevelt
• November 16 – The 2,400,000th day of the Epoch of the Julian day is reached.

Focus On: (38) Leda

Basics

Class: C-type asteroid
Location: Main belt
Orbit length (approx): 4.54 years
Discovered: 12th January 1856 (time unknown), from Paris, France by Jean Chacornac
Events at time of discovery:

• January 8 – Borax deposits are discovered in large quantities by John Veatch in California.
• January 9 – Birth of Lizette Woodworth Reese, American poet and teacher
• January 12 – Birth of John Singer Sargent, American artist

Focus On: (20) Massalia

Basics

Class: S-type asteroid
Location: Inner main belt, Massalia family
Orbit length (approx): 3.74 years
Discovered: 19th September 1852 (time unknown), from Naples, Italy, by Annibale de Gasparis
Notes: Namesake and parent body of the Massalia family, a very large group consisting of stony asteroids with low inclinations.
Events at time of discovery:

• 1852 – French semaphore line is superseded by the telegraph.
• September 24 – Henri Giffard makes the first airship trip.
• September 28 – Birth of Henri Moissan, French chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
• September 30 – Birth of Charles Villiers Stanford, Irish composer

Focus On: (19) Fortuna

Basics

Class: G-type asteroid
Location: Main belt
Orbit length (approx): 3.82 years
Discovered: 22nd August 1852 (time unknown), from London, U.K., by John Russell Hind
Notes: One of the largest main-belt asteroids, Fortuna has a composition similar to (1) Ceres: a darkly colored surface heavily space-weathered with the composition of primitive organic compounds, including tholins.
Events at time of discovery:

• August 3 – The first American intercollegiate athletic event, the Boat Race between Yale and Harvard, is held.
• August 4 – Birth of Catharine van Tussenbroek, Dutch physician
• August 30 – Birth of Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff, Dutch chemist, Nobel Prize laureate

Focus On: (18) Melpomene

Basics

Class: S-type asteroid
Location: Main belt
Orbit length (approx): 3.48 years
Discovered: 24th June 1852 (time unknown), from London, U.K., by John Russell Hind
Notes: Composed of silicates and metals.
Events at time of discovery:

• June 30 – The New Zealand Constitution Act 1852 is passed, giving NZ self-government.
• July 1 – American statesman Henry Clay is the first to receive the honor of lying in state in the United States Capitol rotunda.
• July 5 – Frederick Douglass delivers his famous speech, "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?"

Focus On: (17) Thetis

Basics

Class: Sl-type asteroid
Location: Inner main belt
Orbit length (approx): 3.88 years
Discovered: 17th April 1852, 22:10 UTC, from Düsseldorf, Germany, by Robert Luther
Notes: Approximately 90 km in diameter.
Events at time of discovery:

• April 1 – Birth of Edwin Austin Abbey, American painter
• April 13 – Birth of Frank Winfield Woolworth, American merchant, businessman
• May 1 – Birth of Martha "Calamity" Jane Canary, American frontierswoman
• May 4 – Birth of Alice Pleasance Liddell, inspiration for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Focus On: (16) Psyche

Basics

Class: M-type asteroid
Location: Main belt
Orbit length (approx): 5.00 years
Discovered: 17th March 1852, 20:55 UTC, from Naples, Italy, by Annibale de Gasparis
Notes: Psyche is thought to be the exposed iron core of a protoplanet. It is the most massive metallic M-type asteroid.
Events at time of discovery:

• February 26 – Birth of John Harvey Kellogg, American Adventist doctor and health reformer
• March 18 – Henry Wells and William Fargo create Wells Fargo & Company.
• March 20 – Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe, is published in book form in Boston, Massachusetts.

Focus On: (15) Eunomia

Basics

Class: S-type asteroid
Location: Main belt
Orbit length (approx): 4.30 years
Discovered: 29th July 1851 (time unknown), from Naples, Italy, by Annibale de Gasparis
Notes: Largest of the stony asteroids.
Events at time of discovery:

• July 20 – Birth of Arnold Pick, Czechoslovakian neurologist
• July 28 – Total solar eclipse visible in Canada, Greenland, Iceland and Northern Europe, the first solar eclipse to be photographed.
• August 12 – Isaac Singer is granted a United States patent for his improved sewing machine.

Focus On: (14) Irene

Basics

Class: S-type asteroid
Location: Main belt
Orbit length (approx): 4.16 years
Discovered: 20th May 1851 at 01:09 UTC, from London, UK, by John Russell Hind
Notes: Large asteroid with axial tilt close to 90 degrees.
Events at time of discovery:

• May 1 – The Great Exhibition opened
• Mid-May to mid-July – Great Flood of 1851, midwestern US
• May 18 – Birth of Simon Kahquados, Potawatomi political activist
• May 20 – Birth of Emile Berliner, German-born American telephone and recording pioneer

Focus On: (13) Egeria

Basics

Class: G-type asteroid
Location: Main belt
Orbit length (approx): 4.13 years
Discovered: 2nd November 1850 (time unknown), from Naples Observatory, Italy, by Annibale de Gasparis
Notes: Spectral analysis of Egeria shows it to be unusually high in water content; by mass approximately 11 percent.
Events at time of discovery:

• October 1 – The University of Sydney (the oldest in Australia) is founded.
• October 28 – Delegate Edward Ralph May delivers a speech on behalf of African-American suffrage, to the Indiana Constitutional Convention.
• November 13 – Birth of Robert Louis Stevenson, Scottish writer

Focus On: (12) Victoria

Basics

Class: S-type asteroid
Location: Main belt
Orbit length (approx): 3.56 years
Discovered: 13th September 1850 (time unknown), by John Russell Hind in London, U.K.
Notes: About 112-124 km across with an albedo of 0.18. Victoria has been observed to occult a star three times since its discovery. Elongated; suspected to be a binary asteroid, with a moon of irregular shape.
Events at time of discovery:

• September 5 – Birth of Eugen Goldstein, German physicist
• September 13 – Piz Bernina, the highest summit of the eastern Alps, is first ascended.
• September 18 – The Fugitive Slave Law is passed by the United States Congress. Harriet Tubman becomes an official conductor of the Underground Railroad.

Focus On: (11) Parthenope

Basics

Class: Sk-type asteroid
Location: Main belt
Orbit length (approx): 3.84 years
Discovered: 11th May 1850 (time unknown) by Annibale de Gasparis from Naples, Italy
Notes: Large, bright asteroid.
Events at time of discovery:

• April – Stephen Foster's parlour ballad "Ah! May the Red Rose Live Alway" is published in the United States.
• May 10 – Birth of Sir Thomas Lipton, Scottish merchant, yachtsman
• May 12 – Birth of Henry Cabot Lodge, American statesman
• May 23 – The USS Advance puts to sea from New York to search for Franklin's lost expedition in the Arctic.
• May 25 – The hippopotamus Obaysch arrives at London Zoo from Egypt, the first seen in Europe since Roman times.

Focus On: (10) Hygiea

Basics

Class: C-type asteroid
Location: Main belt
Orbit length (approx): 5.56 years
Discovered: 12th April 1849 (time unknown) from Naples, Italy, by Annibale de Gasparis
Events at time of discovery:

• 1849 – Global healthcare and pharmaceutical company Pfizer was founded in New York.
• January 23 – Elizabeth Blackwell is awarded her M.D. by the Medical Institute of Geneva, New York, thus becoming the United States' first woman doctor.
• July 23 – The French scientist Hippolyte Fizeau measures the speed of light, with an instrument placed on the Earth.
• September 17 – Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery.

Focus On: (9) Metis

Basics

Class: S-type asteroid
Location: Main belt
Orbit length (approx): 3.69 years
Discovered: 25th April 1848 (time unknown) at Markree Castle, Ireland, by Andrew Graham
Events at time of discovery:

• From Wiki: "1848 is historically famous for the wave of revolutions, a series of widespread struggles for more liberal governments, which broke out from Brazil to Hungary; although most failed in their immediate aims, they significantly altered the political and philosophical landscape and had major ramifications throughout the rest of the century."
• February 21 – Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels publish The Communist Manifesto in London.
• March 29 – Queen's College, London, founded, the world's first school to award academic qualifications to young women.
• May 13 – "Maamme", the national anthem of Finland written by German composer Fredrik Pacius and Finnish poet Johan Ludvig Runeberg, was performed for the first time.

Focus On: (8) Flora

Basics

Class: S-type asteroid
Location: Main belt
Orbit length (approx): 3.27 years
Discovered: 18th October 1847 (time unknown), from London, UK, by John Russell Hind
Events at time of discovery:

• September 30 – The Vegetarian Society is formed in the United Kingdom (it remains the oldest in the world).
• October 17 – Birth of Chiquinha Gonzaga, Brazilian composer
• October 19 – Charlotte Brontë publishes Jane Eyre in the UK under the pen name of Currer Bell.
• – Birth of Aurilla Furber, American author, editor, and activist

Focus On: (7) Iris

Basics

Class: S-type asteroid
Location: Main belt
Orbit length (approx): 3.69 years
Discovered: 13th August 1847 (time unknown), from London, UK, by John Russell Hind
Events at time of discovery:

• August – Yale Corporation establishes the first graduate school in the United States, as Department of Philosophy and the Arts
• August 21 – Birth of Hale Johnson, American temperance movement leader

Focus On: (6) Hebe

Basics

Class: S-type asteroid
Location: Main belt
Orbit length (approx): 3.78 years
Discovered: 1st July 1847 (time unknown) from Driesen, Poland, by Karl Ludwig Hencke
Events at time of discovery:

• June 11 – Birth of Dame Milicent Fawcett, British suffragist
• June 16 – Birth of Luella Dowd Smith, American educator, author, and reformer
• July 1 – The United States issues its first postage stamps.
• July 9 – Birth of Wong Fei-hung, Chinese healer, revolutionary

Focus On: (5) Astraea

Basics

Class: S-type asteroid
Location: Main belt
Orbit length (approx): 4.14 years
Discovered: 8th December 1845 (time unknown) from Driesen, Poland, by Karl Ludwig Hencke
Events at time of discovery:

• 1845 – Friedrich Engels' treatise The Condition of the Working Class in England is published in Leipzig.
• – Eugénie Luce founds the Luce Ben Aben School in Algiers.
• August 28 – The journal Scientific American begins publication.
• September 9 – Potato blight breaks out in Ireland, beginning the Great Famine.
• December 2 – Manifest destiny: U.S. President James K. Polk announces to Congress that the Monroe Doctrine should be strictly enforced, and that the United States should aggressively expand into the West.
• December 9 – Birth of Joel Chandler Harris, author of the Uncle Remus series

Focus On: (4) Vesta

Basics

Class: V-type asteroid
Location: Main belt
Orbit length (approx): 3.63 years
Discovered: 29th March 1807 (time unknown), from Bremen, Germany, by Heinrich Wilhelm Matthias Olbers
Events at time of discovery:

• March 25 – The United Kingdom Slave Trade Act becomes law, abolishing the slave trade in most of the British Empire with effect from 1 May (slavery itself is abolished in British colonies in 1833).
• – The Swansea and Mumbles Railway in South Wales, at this time known as the Oystermouth Railway, becomes the first passenger-carrying railway in the world.
• April 14 – African Institution holds its first meeting in London; it is intended to improve social conditions in Sierra Leone.

Focus On: (3) Juno

Basics

Class: Sk-type asteroid
Location: Main belt
Orbit length (approx): 4.36 years
Discovered: 1st September 1804 (time unknown), from Lilienthal Observatory, Germany, by Karl Ludwig Harding
Events at time of discovery:

• 1804 – World population reaches 1 billion people.
• July 27 – The Twelfth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which reformed the way that candidates for President and Vice President are chosen, is ratified by Tennessee, removing doubt surrounding adoption.
• October 8 – Jean-Jacques Dessalines holds his coronation as Jean-Jacques I, Emperor of Haiti.
• December 2 – Coronation of Napoleon I: At the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris, Napoleon crowns himself as the first Emperor of the French in a thousand years. Witnessing this, Simón Bolívar dedicates himself to liberating Venezuela from Spanish rule.

Focus On: (2) Pallas

Basics

Class: B-type asteroid
Location: Main belt
Orbit length (approx): 4.61 years
Discovered: 28th March 1802 (time unknown), from Bremen, Germany, by Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers
Events at time of discovery:

• February – The Rosetta Stone is brought to England by Colonel Tomkyns Hilgrove Turner.
• March 11 – The Rosetta Stone is presented to the Society of Antiquaries of London, which in turn presents it to the British Museum.
• March 25-27 – The Treaty of Amiens between the French Republic and the United Kingdom ends the War of the Second Coalition. The treaty also ends the French Revolutionary Wars.
• April 10 – The Great Trigonometrical Survey of India begins with the measurement of a baseline near Madras.

Focus On: (1) Ceres

Basics

Class: C-type dwarf planet
Location: Main belt
Orbit length (approx): 4.60 years
Discovered: 1st January 1801, 19:49 UTC, from Palermo, Sicily, by Giuseppe Piazzi
Events at time of discovery:

• January 1 – Legislative union of Great Britain and Ireland is completed under the Act of Union 1800.
• January 3 – Toussaint Louverture triumphantly enters Santo Domingo.
• – Birth of Gijsbert Haan, Dutch-American religious reformer