December 15

1612 – Simon Marius becomes the first human to observe the Andromeda galaxy through a telescope.
1923 – Physicist Freeman Dyson is born. Best know for his speculative work on extraterrestrial civilizations, he proposed that a highly advanced technological civilization would ultimately completely surround its host star with a huge shell to capture 100% of the useful radiant energy. This “Dyson shell” would have a gigantic cluster of artificial planetoids (“Dyson cloud”) with billions of billions of inhabitants who would make use of the energy captured by the Dyson shell.
1968 – Actor Garrett Wang (Ensign Harry Kim) is born.

1970 – Spacecraft Venera 7 becomes the first human probe to soft-land on Venus.