On this day

31 October in history.

5 moments from 1941 to 2005: discovery, creativity and courage, each with a source to read more.

5 moments

Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota, United States

1941

The Mount Rushmore faces are finished. About 400 workers completed the 18-metre (60-foot) carved faces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln at Mount Rushmore.

Wikipedia: Bust (sculpture)

Photo: Thomas Wolf, www.foto-tw.de / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

More from 31 October

  1. 1996

    The first Irish-language TV station goes on air

    TG4, the world's first television station in the Irish language, began broadcasting.

    Wikipedia: TG4Wikipedia: Irish language

  2. Jesse Martin

    1999

    Jesse Martin sails around the world alone

    Australian sailor Jesse Martin arrived in Melbourne as the youngest person to sail around the world alone, non-stop and without help.

    Wikipedia: Jesse MartinWikipedia: List of youth solo sailing circumnavigations

    Photo: Yosail / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

  3. A Soyuz spacecraft lifts off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 10:53 a.m. Kazakhstan time. Onboard were Expedition One commander William M. (Bill) Shepherd, Soyuz commander Yuri P. Gidzenko and Sergei K. Krikalev, flight engineer.

    2000

    The first crew moves into the International Space Station

    Soyuz TM-31 carried the first crew to live on the International Space Station. People have lived on board ever since.

    Wikipedia: Soyuz TM-31Wikipedia: International Space Station

    Photo: NASA / Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)

  4. Three years after NASA's New Horizons spacecraft gave humankind our first close-up views of Pluto and its largest moon, Charon, scientists are still revealing the wonders of these incredible worlds in the outer solar system. Marking the anniversary of New Horizons' historic flig…

    2005

    Two new moons of Pluto are announced

    Astronomers announced the discovery of Nix and Hydra, two moons of Pluto spotted in Hubble Space Telescope photos taken about five months earlier.

    Wikipedia: Moons of PlutoWikipedia: Nix (moon)Wikipedia: Hydra (moon)

    Photo: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute/Ale… / Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)

Moments chosen for discovery, creativity and courage. Each one links to a source where you can read more; photos are credited to their owners.