This Day in History: 1738-11-15
In 1738 William Herschel was born in Hanover, Germany
William Herschel was born in Hanover, Germany on the 15th of November 1738. He moved to England at the age of nineteen with his brothers after serving in the German army. He became an accomplished composer and could play many instruments. His love of music led him to maths, then into the construction of telescopes (building over 400) and inevitably he became interested in astronomy. On a Newtonian telescope, he began studying twin stars and catalogued many discoveries. One object he studied, believing it to be a star, seemed to move in planetary orbit and once this was confirmed that it was a planet just out from Saturn, Herschel named it ‘Georgium Sidus’ or Georgian Star after King George III of Britain. The Name was not accepted by many, particularly the French who named the Planet Herschel’ and later German Astronomer Johan Bode suggested the name ‘Uranus’, following the tradition of mythical gods. Herschel also discovered two of Uranus’s moons, Titania and Oberon, on the 11th of January 1787 as well as two of Saturn’s moons, Enceladus and Mimas on the 28th of August 1789 and 17th of September 1789 respectively. He also calculated that the Milky Way was disc-shaped and made many more discoveries.
