1643: Sir Isaac Newton was born. 1809: Blind French educator Louis Braille, inventor of the tactile reading system bearing his name, was born. 1895: Leroy Grumman, founder of Grumman Aircraft, was born. 1940: British Nobel physicist Brian Josephson, who discovered the Josephson effect, was born. 1958: The first man-made object to orbit the earth, the Russian Sputnik I satellite, fell back into the atmosphere and disintegrated after 92 days in space. 1961: Erwin Schrödinger, the famous physicist with the dead cat (maybe), died. 1983: Time Magazine published its 1982 "Man of the Year" edition, having selected the Personal Computer. 1994: The 104th Congress convened as the first entirely under Republican control since the Eisenhower era. 2004: Afghanistan approved a new, democratic, constitution.  2004: NASA's Spirit Rover, the first of two Mars exploratory landers, landed on Mars.