This Day, That Year – December 7

Apollo 17 launched on this day in 1972 – the final manned lunar landing mission where the crew took the famous “blue marble” photo of the entire Earth.

Did you know that:

• Theodor Schwann was a German physician and physiologist born on this day in 1810
• Inventor Leo Baekeland patented the first synthetic plastic, Bakelite, on this day in 1909 – sparking the birth of the plastic industry
• Linguist Noam Chomsky, the founder of transformational grammar, was born on this day in 1928