Edmond Halley is 355 today. You may already have noticed Google's celebration of it - if not, it looks like this:
Halley was a brilliant scientist who made major contributions if many fields. But it was pretty clever to work out the orbits of some comets, pronounce them all the same comet making return visits and predict its next visit. He didn't live to see it, but his prediction was remembered and the world was impressed when he was right.
But he was also just a nice man who could get along with the notoriously difficult Isaac Newton. And someone so much fun he was a favored drinking companion of the Czar of Russia. If you want to know more:
Edmond Halley 
