On 18 May 1897, Irish author Bram Stoker presented his vampire novel Dracula in London through a staged reading. The first actor to portray the vampire was Thomas Jones. Since then, Dracula has probably become the most famous vampire in literary history.
Who invented it? In this case, it was the Swedes. In 1951, a new form of packaging was introduced in Sweden, featuring different coatings depending on the product inside. This marked the birth of Tetra Pak, a revolutionary alternative to glass bottles and metal cans. The company’s slogan, “Protects what’s good”, along with its distinctive logo, is now legally protected around the world.
In 1969, Apollo 10 launched into space. The three astronauts on board conducted a full-scale rehearsal of the upcoming moon landing, testing all systems without actually landing. Upon re-entering Earth’s atmosphere eight days later, they reached a relative speed of nearly 40,000 km/h – the fastest velocity ever achieved by humans.
In 1974, the radio transmission tower of Radio Warsaw was completed in Poland. Standing at 646.38 meters and weighing 420 tons, it was the tallest structure in the world at the time. Equipped with two transmitters, the tower broadcast Polish programming across vast distances – from Kazakhstan and the Middle East to Europe and North America – allowing Poles in the U.S. to stay connected to news from home. However, due to poor maintenance, the tower collapsed in the summer of 1991.
In 1980, Mount St. Helens erupted in the U.S. state of Washington in one of the most powerful volcanic events of the 20th century. The eruption claimed the lives of 57 people and thousands of animals. With a force equivalent to 24 megatons of TNT (about 1,600 times that of the Hiroshima bomb!) it ejected over 4 cubic kilometres of material and devastated hundreds of square kilometres of land.
On the same day, in Gwangju, South Korea, a peaceful pro-democracy demonstration was violently suppressed by the military. Over the next nine days, further clashes led to a massacre. It is estimated that up to 2,000 people lost their lives during the protests.
