Historical events and people in geosciences

The historical study of science has really only emerged as a well-recognized academic field in the last 2 decades. Coincedently with this emergence has been the nearly astronomical growth in the field of space physics and its subfields of geomagnetism and aeronomy. Although the beginnings of modern geomagnetism and aeronomy. Although the beginnings of modern geomagnetism and aeronomy can be said to have started with William Gilbert and his book „De Magnete“ (published in 1600), the explosive growth in these fields can be traced directly to the launch 25 years ago of the Sputnik and, more importantly, the First International Geophysical Year. It is altogether fitting, therefore, that the 1983 Hamburg IUGG/IAGA meeting, the papers of which are presented in this publication, should serve as benchmarklin the growth and acceptance of the study of the history of geomagnetism and aeronomy.