This Day in History: March 13, 1781

[U.S. of America]

March 13, 1781: The planet Uranus discovered.

On this day English astronomer William Herschel first observed Uranus. He described how he found “a curious either nebulous star or perhaps a comet,” distinguished from the stars by its clearly visible disk. Its lack of any trace of a tail and its slow motion led to the suggestion that the observations were consistent with those of a planet moving in a nearly circular orbit.