Nick Pearson

1 week ago | 9news.com.au | Nick Pearson

1 of 11Attribution: Getty2 of 11Attribution: Supplied3 of 11Attribution: NBC News4 of 11Attribution: NBC News5 of 11Attribution: NBC News6 of 11Attribution: SuppliedLibyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi went on television on April 16, 1986, to prove he was still alive following a US airstrike.

1 week ago | 9news.com.au | Nick Pearson

The astronauts survived thanks to the Apollo abort guidance system, a backup computer program made in part by aerospace engineer Judith Love Cohen. The previous year, Cohen had solved a critical problem with the system while she was in labour. Cohen printed out the issue when she went into labour, and figured out a solution while in hospital. She then gave birth to actor Jack Black.

1 week ago | 9news.com.au | Nick Pearson

On April 12, 1955, the polio vaccine, invented by Jonas Salk, vaccine tested by Jonas Salk was announced to be safe and effective by US health regulators. Most polio patients suffered only temporary symptoms, but one out of every 200 suffered irreversible paralysis, including US President Franklin D. Roosevelt. As a result of Salk's vaccine, and later an oral vaccine developed by Dr. Albert Sabin, polio had all but disappeared from the United States by 1979.

2 weeks ago | 9news.com.au | Nick Pearson

A US man was jailed for an outrageous string of fraud and bigamy charges on April 11, 1983. Giovanni Vigliotto would marry a woman, then pack up her belongings in a moving truck, organising to meet her at his home. When she would arrive at the address, he was not there. Instead he would disappear and sell her things at markets. Vigliotto did this successfully to 104 victims. But the 105th drove to every market she could find, eventually tracking him down in Florida.

2 weeks ago | 9news.com.au | Nick Pearson

IRA member and prisoner Bobby Sands was elected to the British House of Commons on April 10, 1981. The result was seen as a propaganda victory for the IRA against the UK government. Sands, 27, had begun a hunger strike 41 days before his election to press the republican prisoners' claim to be treated as prisoners of war. Despite his election, he remained in prison and on hunger strike before his death just a few weeks later.