On This Day: August 19

Three August 19 stories show what happens when a new possibility leaves the workshop and meets the world: photography becomes public, an invasion plan meets a fortified coast, and two dogs help make human spaceflight possible.

In 1839, the French government released Louis Daguerre’s photographic process to the world. The Daguerreotype created a detailed image on a silver-plated metal plate, making photography publicly available while also exposing the hazardous chemistry behind the image. 1

In 1942, the Allied Dieppe Raid tested an opposed landing on the French coast. The operation ended in a German victory, with more than two-thirds of the nearly 5,000-strong Canadian contingent killed, wounded, or captured. Later Allied amphibious operations, including the Normandy landings, drew on lessons from the raid, though historians and participants have debated how much Dieppe itself contributed. 2

In 1960, the Soviet spacecraft Korabl-Sputnik 2, known in the West as Sputnik 5, carried the dogs Belka and Strelka into orbit and returned them safely the next day. The mission became a direct step toward Vostok 1, the first human orbital flight. 3