 The origin of the International Geophysical Year can be traced to the International

Polar Years held in 1882–1883, then in 1932–1933 and most recently from March
2007 to March 2009. On 5 April 1950, several top scientists (including Lloyd
Berkner, Sydney Chapman, S. Fred Singer, and Harry Vestine), met in James Van
Allen's living room and suggested that the time was ripe to have a worldwide
Geophysical Year instead of a Polar Year, especially considering recent advances in
rocketry, radar, and computing.[7] Berkner and Chapman proposed to the International
Council of Scientific Unions that an International Geophysical Year (IGY) be planned
for 1957–58, coinciding with an approaching period of maximum solar activity.[8][9] In
1952, the IGY was announced.[10] Joseph Stalin's death in 1953 opened the way for
international collaboration with the Soviet Union.
 On 29 July 1955, James C. Hagerty, president Dwight D. Eisenhower's press
secretary, announced that the United States intended to launch "small Earth circling
satellites" between 1 July 1957 and 31 December 1958 as part of the United States
contribution to the International Geophysical Year (IGY).[11] Project Vanguard would
be managed by the Naval Research Laboratory and to be based on developing
sounding rockets, which had the advantage that they were primarily used for non-
military scientific experiments.[12]
 Four days later, at the Sixth Congress of International Astronautical Federation in
Copenhagen, scientist Leonid I. Sedov spoke to international reporters at the Soviet
embassy and announced his country's intention to launch a satellite in the "near
future".[13]
 To the surprise of many, the USSR launched Sputnik 1 as the first artificial Earth
satellite on 4 October 1957. After several failed Vanguard launches, Wernher von
Braun and his team convinced President Dwight D. Eisenhower to use one of their US
Army missiles for the Explorer program (there was not yet an inhibition about using
military rockets to get into space). On 8 November 1957, the US Secretary of Defense
instructed the US Army to use a modified Jupiter-C rocket to launch a satellite.[14] The
US achieved this goal only four months later with Explorer 1, on 1 February 1958, but
after Sputnik 2 on 3 November 1957, making Explorer 1 the third artificial Earth
satellite. Vanguard 1 became the fourth, launched on 17 March 1958. The Soviet
launches would be followed by considerable political consequences, one of which was
the creation of the US space agency NASA on 29 July 1958.
 The British–American survey of the Atlantic, carried out between September 1954
and July 1959, discovered the full length of the mid-Atlantic ridges (plate tectonics);
it was a major discovery during the IGY.[15]

 World Data Centers

 Initiative, or adding other metadata to facilitate online discovery.