1939 – First jet plane, Heinkel He 178, demonstrated to German Air Ministry

1952 – “Ivy Mike”, the first thermonuclear weapon to utilize the H-bomb design ofEdward Teller and Stanislaw Ulam, is detonated in the Marshall Islands, Pacific Ocean

1955 – Time bomb aboard United DC-6 kills 44 above Longmont, Colorado

2012 – Scientists detect evidence of light from the universe’s first stars, predicted to have formed 500 million years after the big bang