360What happened in 1801?
2 moments from 1801 on 360n60, each told in 60 words or fewer.
- On this day · 1 January 1801
Ceres, the first asteroid, is discovered
On 1 January 1801, the Italian astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi spotted a faint moving point of light from his observatory in Palermo. It was Ceres, the first object found in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Today Ceres is classed as a dwarf planet, and NASA's Dawn spacecraft orbited it from 2015.
- 1801 · from Trevithick's engine makes the first railway locomotive journey
Trevithick's steam road carriage runs in Cornwall