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The Universe: Mars - The Red Planet

Sat July 4th at 5:00pm

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The Universe: End of the Earth

Coming Soon

The Universe: Inner Planets - Mercury and Venus

Coming Soon

Mars

In Roman mythology, the god of war (Mars Gradivus), depicted as a fearless warrior. The month of March is named after him. He was identified with the Greek Ares, but achieved greater status.

Together with Jupiter and Quirinius, a Sabine war god, he was one of the three great guardians of Rome. His name was given to a military exercise ground, the Campus Martius, where an annual horse racing festival was held on 14 Mar in his honour. Mars was also a god of agriculture, and protector of cattle. The wolf and the woodpecker were sacred to him.

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The Great War: Germany’s failed gambit

The American Civil War: The Road to War

NAM - The Somme

Corgi

3 January

The Thane of Ross called MacBeth "Bellona's bridegroom", a title which would hardly be a compliment today. The goddess Bellona, the "Waster of Cities" may have predated Mars as the earliest Roman war deity, and for over 200 years BC June 3 was the date of her Festival.

14 January 1953
Marshal Josip Broz Tito becomes President of Yugoslavia.

24 January 1848

James Marshall discovers gold at Sutter's Sawmill in California, USA, sparking the 'Great Gold Rush'.

25 January 2004

The second NASA rover, sent to explore Mars, lands on the surface of the planet, where it will look for signs of water.

3 February 1945
World War II: American forces invade and take control of the Marshall Islands, long occupied by the Japanese.

17 February 1945

The Second World War: The U.S. launches Operation Catchpole, resulting in America taking control of the atoll in the north western part of the Marshall Islands.

10 March 2006
NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter reaches the orbit of Mars.

16 March 2001
In Britain, 18 year-old women Claire Marsh becomes the youngest ever female to be convicted of rape.

27 March 1969
In America, NASA launches Mariner 7 to study Mars.

29 March 1917
The First World War: In Sweden, Prime Minister Hjalmar Hammarskjold resigns in light of his controversial policy of adopting neutrality during the War.

5 April 1945
The Second World War: Under the leadership of Marshal Tito, Yugoslavia signs a treaty with the Soviet Union permitting their troops temporary entry into Yugoslavia.

7 April 1953
Dag Hammarskjold is elected secretary-general of the United Nations.

25 April 1792
Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle composes La Marseillaise, the French national anthem.

30 May 1971
Launch of the US space probe Mariner 9 on its mission to Mars. It is able to send more than 7,000 pictures of the planet back to Earth.

2 June 2003
In Kazakhstan, the European Space Agency launches the Mars Express probe.

8 June 1950
Sir Thomas Blamey is appointed Field Marshal becoming the only Australian to ever hold this position in the army.

13 June 1967
America President, Lyndon Johnson, appoints Thurgood Marshall to the Supreme Court. Marshall is the first African-American Judge to receive such a position.

19 June 1965
The Vietnam War: Air Vice-Marshal Nguyen Cao Ky becomes leader of South Vietnam.

2 July 1947
The Soviet Union rejects America’s offer of aid through the Marshall Plan.

4 July 1997
The unmanned American space probe 'Pathfinder' lands on Mars.

6 July 1997
Sojourner, a robot onboard the Mars Pathfinder, is released from the probe to explore the red planet.

14 July 1965
The American spacecraft Mariner 4 flies past Mars and takes photos of the Red planet.

15 July 1965
The American Mariner IV satellite, launched in November 1964, begins transmitting close-up pictures of the surface of Mars back to earth.

20 July 1976
Unmanned US spacecraft Viking 1 makes a successful soft landing on the surface of Mars following an 11 month voyage from Earth.

23 July 1951
In France the former leader of the Vichy regime during the Second World War, Marshal Philippe Petain, dies in prison.

6 August 1996
American scientists reveal that they have found evidence of ancient life on Mars in the remnants of a meteorite discovered in Antarctica.

7 August 1976
The American orbiter Viking 2 enters into orbit around Mars.

17 August 1943
The Second World War: U.S. General. Patton arrives in Messina several hours before British Field Marshal Montgomery, winning the unofficial “Race to Messina” and completing the Allied conquest of Sicily.

20 August 1975
NASA launches the spacecraft Viking I in a mission to Mars.

21 August 1993
NASA loses contact with the Mars Observer spacecraft. It has never re-established it.

27 August 2003
Mars passes within 34,646,416 miles of Earth, its closest approach in approximately 60,000 years.

3 September 1976
The U.S. spacecraft Viking II lands on Mars after a journey through space lasting 359 days and begins sending pictures of the planet back to earth.

10 September 1977
At Baumetes Prison in Marseille, France Hamida Djandoubi, a Tunisian immigrant convicted of murder, becomes the last person executed by guillotine.

11 September 1997
NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor reaches the red planet.

2 October 1967
Chief Justice Earl Warren swears in Thurgood Marshall, the first black justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

9 October 1934
King Alexander I of Yugoslavia and the French Foreign Minister Louis Barthou are assassinated by Croatian terrorists in Marseilles, France.

14 October 1944
The Second World War: German military commander, Field Marshall Erwin Rommel commits suicide by taking a cyanide tablet shortly before being arrested on suspicion of being involved in the failed attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler.

16 October 1946
10 Nazi war criminals are executed in accordance with the sentences handed down by the Nuremburg trials. Among those hanged are General Alfred Jodl, Field Marshall Wilhelm Keitel, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Wilhelm Frick and Julius Streicher.

13 November 1971
The American space probe, Mariner 9, flies around Mars, becoming the first spacecraft to orbit another planet.

28 November 1964
NASA launches the spacecraft Mariner 4, which becomes the first to successfully fly by the planet Mars.

29 November 1945
In the Balkans, Yugoslavia is proclaimed a Federal People’s Republic under the leadership of Marshal Tito.

7 December 1815
Michel Ney, one of the 18 Marshal’s of France created by Napoleon Bonaparte, is executed having been convicted of treason for his support of Napoleon.

24 December 1994
Four Islamic extremists hijack Air France plane in Algiers. The plane is allowed to land in Marseilles, France where it is eventually stormed and the siege ended.

25 December 2003
Scientists lose contact with the British-built Mars probe, Beagle 2 which was due to land on Mars on this day.

3 January 1999

The Mars Polar Lander launches from Cape Canaveral, U.S.A.

1776: United States declares independence
After a decade of economic conflict with Great Britain, the 13 colonies answer King George III's... More >

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Ancient Chinese Sports

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Sat 4 Jul 9.00pm

The Plague (Part 2 of 2)

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