August 22 is Madras Day, the anniversary the city of Chennai marks each year for the 1639 land deal that founded it — a date now also loosely linked, more than three centuries later, to a very different kind of first: the day scientists finally confirmed a planet's rings.
On this day
1485Henry Tudor defeated King Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth Field, ending the Wars of the Roses and founding the Tudor dynasty that would rule England for the next 118 years.Ridiculopathy via Wikimedia Commons · CC0
1851The schooner America outraced a fleet of Royal Yacht Squadron boats off the Isle of Wight, winning a trophy that was later renamed the America's Cup — now the oldest active trophy in international sport.Basher Eyre via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
1639IndiaThe British East India Company acquired a strip of coastal land from local Nayak rulers on which it would build Fort St. George, the settlement that grew into the city of Madras, now Chennai.AnonymousUnknown author via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain
Did you know
Astronomers had theorised for over a century that Neptune might have rings, but nobody could confirm it until Voyager 2's flyby on 22 August 1989 — the rings turned out to be real, just too dark and dusty to catch starlight the way Saturn's icy rings do.