🎂 Mapmaker Gerardus Mercator is born (1512)
Where: Rupelmonde, Belgium
📅 On This Day: March 5
March 5, 1512: Mapmaker Gerardus Mercator is born. Gerardus Mercator was born in 1512 in Rupelmonde, in today's Belgium. He made a world map, the Mercator projection, that spreads the round Earth onto flat paper so sailors could plot courses with straight lines. He was also the first to call a book of maps an "atlas".
✨ More events on this day
- 1872 💡 George Westinghouse patented his air brake, which let a train driver stop every carriage at once and made railways much safer.
- 1978 🔬 The satellite Landsat 3 was launched from California to photograph Earth's land from space, helping people map forests, farms and cities.
- 1981 💡 The ZX81, a tiny and cheap British home computer, went on sale, and more than a million people used it to learn programming at home.
🧠 Question of the day
What did Mercator call a book of maps?
- A diary
- A dictionary
- An atlas
Show the answer
Answer: An atlas
Questions
What happened on March 5?
March 5, 1512: Mapmaker Gerardus Mercator is born. It happened in Rupelmonde, Belgium.
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