October 15

1608: Italian physicist and mathematician Evangelista Torricelli, who invented the barometer, was born. 1783: French school teacher Jean Pilâtre de Rozier made a tethered, captive-balloon ascent, 250 feet above the gardens of La Muette, Fance, thereby becoming the first man ever to fly. 1829: American astronomer Asaph Hall, who discovered named the two moons of Mars Phobos and Deimos, was born. 1927: Oil was discovered at Kirkuk in Iraq. 1928: The German airship Graf Zeppelin completed its journey across the Atlantic from Friedrichshafen to Lakehurst, NJ. 1930: American industrialist Herbert Dow, founder of Dow Chemical Company, died. 1939: NY mayor Fiorello La Guardia dedicated the airport bearing his name. 1950: Telanserphone (later Aircall) of New York City, the first American radio paging service, sent its first page to a doctor who was on a golf course 25 miles away. 1997: NASA's plutonium-powered "Cassini" spacecraft launched toward Saturn. 2003: China became the third nation to launch a man into space.