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Galileo hard at work, presumably after his house arrest. (Wikimedia Commons) On this day in 1616, Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei was forbidden from defending heliocentrism, or the theory that the earth rotates around the sun. After designing a relatively sophisticated telescope in 1613, Galileo had observed that the earth was not, in fact, the centre…
Soviet Secretary Nikita Khrushchev "thaws out" in a 1962 cartoon by John Frith. (John Frith/The Herald) On this day in 1956, a speech entitled On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences - AKA the Secret Speech - was delivered to Soviet leadership by Secretary Nikita Khrushchev. The speech, which was not made available to…
ASAP History 