Today's 1 November Fun Facts in History

Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel

1512 Michelangelo's paintings on ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City first exhibited to the public after four years of work [1]

1665 Robert Hooke's landmark work "Micrographia," with drawings using a microscope and coining the word "cell," is published by the Royal Society

1800 John Adams becomes the first US President to live in the White House

1848 WHSmith opens its first railway bookstall at Euston Station in London

1896 First bare-breasted woman (Zulu) appears in National Geographic Magazine
1939 First animal conceived by artificial insemination (rabbit) displayed
1957 Mackinac Straits Bridge, Michigan, the world longest suspension bridge, connecting Michigan's Upper and Lower peninsulas, opens to traffic

1959 Montreal Canadiens' goaltender Jacques Plante becomes the first NHL netminder to wear a fiberglass protective face mask

1984 Willem de Kooning's "Two Women" sells for $1,980,000, a record for a contemporary work of art and for a living artist

1994 Chicago Bulls retire basketball superstar Michael Jordan's jersey #23 in a 2-hour ceremony at the United Center

2012 Scientists detect evidence of light from the universe's first stars, estimated to have formed 500 million years after the Big Bang
2018 Palau becomes the first country to ban sunscreen with 10 specific chemicals to protect its coral reefs from chemical pollution and bleaching
2023 "AI" is named the most notable word of the year by Chambers Dictionary [1]
2023 A study suggests that the arms of a starfish are not limbs but rather extensions of a single, large head [1]
2023 Two ISS astronauts lose a tool bag during a spacewalk 200 miles above Earth; it is expected to burn up in the atmosphere due to friction [1]
2024 Collins Dictionary names "brat" as its word of the year for 2024 [1]