The famous tower clock known as Big Ben, located at the top of the 320-foot-
high Elizabeth Tower, rang out over the Houses of Parliament in Westminster, London, for the first time on May 31, 1859.

After a fire destroyed much of the Palace of Westminster—the headquarters
of the British Parliament—in October 1834, a standout feature of the design
for the new palace was a large clock atop a tower. The royal astronomer, Sir
George Airy, wanted the clock to have pinpoint accuracy, including twice-a-
day checks with the Royal Greenwich Observatory. While many clockmakers dismissed this goal as impossible, Airy counted on the help of Edmund
Beckett Denison, a formidable barrister known for his expertise in horology,
or the science of measuring time.

Sir George Biddell Airy
(July 27, 1801 – January 2, 1892)

Sir Edmund Beckett Denison
(1787 – 1874)

ROSS SIMPSON

Susan B. Anthony (February 15, 1820 – March 13, 1906).

Susan B. Anthony was an American social reformer and women’s rights
activist who played a pivotal role in the women’s suffrage movement.

The Susan B. Anthony dollar is a United States dollar coin minted from 1979
to 1981, when production was suspended due to poor public acceptance,
and then again in 1999. Intended as a replacement for the cumbersome
Eisenhower dollar, the new smaller one dollar coin went through testing
of several shapes and compositions, but all were opposed by the vending
machine industry, a powerful lobby affecting coin legislation. Finally, a
round planchet with an eleven-sided inner border was chosen for the
smaller dollar.

BRIAN THOMAS

During World War II on this  day in 1945, about 30,000 United States
Marines landed on and eventually captured the island of Iwo Jima 
from the Imperial Japanese Army.  

William "Smokey" Robinson Jr. is 79-years-old today.

Singer, songwriter, record producer, and former record executive
Smokey Robinson was the founder and front man of the Motown
vocal group the Miracles, for which he was also chief songwriter
and producer. Robinson led the group from its 1955 origins as
"The Five Chimes" until 1972 when he announced a retirement
from the group to focus on his role as Motown’s vice president,
but Robinson returned to the music industry as a solo artist the
following year. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of
Fame in 1987.

ROSS SIMPSON

On this day in 1898, the USS Maine sank when it exploded in Havana Harbor for unknown reasons. More than 260 crew members were
killed. The episode escalated tensions between the United States
and Spain and contributed to the outbreak of the Spanish-American
War two months later.

On this day in 1974, Mariner 10, the U.S. space probe became the
first spacecraft to reach the planet Mercury. It had been launched
on November 3, 1973. Mariner 10 was the first spacecraft to return
high-resolution digital color images.

A photomosaic of Mercury images taken by Mariner 10, tinted to approximate the appearance of Mercury.