While Sunday was already often taken as a day off in the U.S. and other nations, Saturday came to be taken as a holiday as well only in the 20th century.
The discovery of penicillin, one of the world’s first antibiotics, marks a true turning point in human history when doctors finally had a tool that could completely cure their patients of deadly infectious diseases.
Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin, launching the age of antiobiotics Read more
Now known as Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the park was established to protect forest habitats for local gorilla populations. In 1979, it was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site.
The Belgian Congo establishes Albert National Park, Africa’s first national park Read more
The original five Winter Olympic sports were bobsleigh, curling, ice hockey, Nordic skiing, and skating. The Winter Olympic Games have now been hosted on three continents by twelve countries.
The first-ever Winter Olympics begins in Chamonix, France Read more
It is considered one of the most important works of modernist literature and has been called “a demonstration and summation of the entire movement.”
James Joyce’s iconic modernist novel Ulysses published Read more
Within a year, people suffering from diabetes were being treated with insulin for a disease that had been considered fatal.
Frederick Banting and Charles Best successfully isolate insulin for the first time Read more
At that time, the source of stellar energy was a complete mystery; Eddington correctly speculated that the source was fusion of hydrogen into helium, liberating enormous energy according to Einstein’s equation E = mc2.
In October 1920, the Bolsheviks under Vladimir Lenin made abortion legal within the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic with their “Decree on Women’s Healthcare”. After the RSFSR, the law was introduced in Ukraine in July 1921 and then the remainder of the Soviet Union. The government saw legalization as a temporary necessity, as after the economic crisis and nearly a decade of unrest, war, revolution, and civil war, many women would be seeking abortions due to not being able to take care of their child.
The Soviet Union becomes the first modern state in the world to formally legalize abortion Read more
