December 30

1924 – Edwin Hubble announces the existence of other galaxies during a meeting of scientists in Washington, D.C. His paper gave the first proof that Andromeda was a separate galactic system from our own Milky Way. His discovery had earlier been published in The New York Times.
1954 – Engineer Rodney A. Brooks is born. A pioneer in applying artificial intelligence to the building of autonomous robots, Brooks founded the iRobot Corporation. His company manufactured robots for both the commercial market as well as for NASA.