Frederick Langenheim took the first photo of a solar eclipse.
Source
Carolyn & Eugene Shoemaker and David Levy discovered the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet.
Robert H. Lawrence, Jr. was selected as the first African-American astronaut.
Italian astronomer Giovanni Donati became the first person to observe the spectrum of a comet.
Astronomer Edwin Hubble formally announced the existence of other galactic systems at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society.
The first all-female spacewalk took place.
