On this day, Geek Div.

On September 19, 1959, physicists Guiseppe Cocconi and Philip Morrison published the first scientific paper on the idea of using radio waves as a means of interplanetary and interstellar communication.

Six months earlier and quite independently, astronomer Frank Drake began work on Project Ozma based on a similar idea. But if a particular day is going to be assigned, then September 19 is the birthday of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or SETI.