November 8 Activities

•Cortes Conquers Mexico - In 1656, after landing on the Yucatan peninsula in April, Spaniard Hernan Cortes and his troops marched into the interior of Mexico to the Aztec capital and took Aztec emperor Montezuma hostage.
•Edmund Halley´s Birthday - (b 1656) Astronomer and mathematician. He observed the great comet of 1682 (now named for him), first conceived its periodicity and wrote in his Synopsis of Comet Astronomy: "...I may venture to foretell that this Comet will return again in the year 1758." There have been 28 recorded appearances of this comet since 240 BCE. Average time between appearances is 76 years. It is next expected to be visible in 2061.
•Montana Admission Day - Montana became the 41st state in 1889.
•X-Ray Discovery Day - In 1895, physicist Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen discovered X-rays, beginning a new era in physics and medicine. Although X-rays had been observed previously, it was Rontgen, a professor at the University of Wurzburg (Germany), who successfully repeated X-ray experiments and who is credited with the discovery.