{"id":14540,"date":"2019-10-19T14:38:06","date_gmt":"2019-10-19T14:38:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.golive.clarku.edu\/news\/2019\/10\/19\/oct-19-1899-robert-goddards-anniversary-day\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T19:02:06","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T23:02:06","slug":"oct-19-1899-robert-goddards-anniversary-day","status":"publish","type":"story","link":"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/2019\/10\/19\/oct-19-1899-robert-goddards-anniversary-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Oct. 19, 1899: Robert Goddard\u2019s \u2018Anniversary Day’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n

\u2018Existence at last seemed very purposive\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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On March 26, 1926, at his aunt\u2019s farm in Auburn, Massachusetts, Clark University Physics Professor Robert H. Goddard \u2014 who received a master\u2019s degree from Clark in 1910, and a doctorate in 1911 \u2014launched the first liquid-fueled rocket. He had been performing experiments on liquid-fueled rockets since 1921 and successfully created an engine for one in 1923, steadily improving on the design and testing it in static racks<\/a> in his Clark lab.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

But Goddard\u2019s work started much earlier \u2014 he first envisioned space travel as a 17-year-old in Worcester, 24 years before those static tests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Goddard was a compulsive diarist. On October 19, 1899, he noted that he \u201ctrimmed [a] large cherry tree\u201d (pictured, right), but he later noted that the day was transformative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In \u201cMaterial for an Autobiography\u201d (1927), he wrote:<\/p>\n\n\n\n