What a Difference a Day Makes Trivia Quiz

Answer: Chuck Yeager

Chuck Yeager flew at the first officially recorded supersonic speeds in his X-1 jet, showing that the speed of sound was no insurmountable limit to human engineering. There were a few other attempts before this that were either not documented or official, but this was the clear, unambiguous first success in the attempt to surpass the speed of sound.

Answer: On the Origin of Species

"On the Origin of Species" set forth the theory of evolution, which has been so difficult to reconcile with the Church doctrines of the origins of Earth and animals that it is still being debated today. Most famously, in 1925, a court case known as the Scopes Monkey Trial would result from this theory being taught in schools.

Answer: Penicillin

Alexander Fleming famously discovered penicillin by accident after returning to his lab to find that mold can kill bacteria. It was a very good day for medical science, and one that he himself has said he did not expect when he woke up that day.

Answer: Robert Oppenheimer

Robert Oppenheimer was the director of the Los Alamos facility and had this reaction to the Trinity testing. He famously was recorded as saying he was reminded of the Hindu text upon seeing the blast. The bombs tested here went on to become the prototypes for the bombs used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Answer: DNA

The human genome project went right to the core of how we're built, DNA! Each gene was mapped and defined, with new goals being added all the while during the project, but with the first mission - the analysis of one complete reference genome - officially reaching completion on this date in 2003.

Answer: Wilhelm Roentgen

Wilhelm Roentgen is credited with discovering X-rays, first called "Roentgen rays" after their discovery. He not only discovered this particular frequency spectrum of radiation, but also used it in ways we recognize now, to take pictures of bones!

Answer: Samuel Morse

Samuel Morse was an American inventor who based his telegraph on prototypical European models and co-invented the language used in these messages, the Morse code. The event in question was a public demonstration of the telegraph, and the quote "what hath God wrought" was picked in advance.

Answer: Heart Transplant

The human-to-human heart transplant was first performed by Dr. Christiaan Barnard in South Africa in 1967. The patient only lived slightly longer than two weeks after his surgery, succumbing to infection, most likely because of the immunosuppresants he was taking.

Answer: Sputnik 1

Sputnik 1, the first ever man-made object to orbit the Earth, was launched by the Soviet Union, and was indeed a major turning point in both the Cold War and the pursuit of space exploration. The United States space program was spurred by this demonstration of Soviet space domination.

Answer: Polio

Poliomyelitis was a childhood disease that in its more serious instances would cause paralysis. After the vaccine for it came out, it was largely eradicated, cut down from hundreds of thousands of cases to a few thousand per year over the past few decades.