TODAY IN HISTORY

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MARCH 13

1781:Sir William Herschel sights what he believes to be a comet in the night sky, although he had actually discovered the planet Uranus. Herschel's planetary discovery is the first made by using a telescope. Although Herschel originally names the planet Georgium Sidus after England's King George III, the name Uranus, the Greek god of the sky and father of Saturn, will eventually be adopted.

1639: Three years after its founding, the "new college" in Cambridge, Mass., is renamed Harvard College after local clergyman John Harvard, who bequeathed his library and much of his wealth to the institution.