The Black Death inadvertently set the stage for one of his most famous insights

In 1665, Cambridge University closed its doors due to a bubonic plague outbreak in England, forcing Newton to return to Woolsthorpe Manor. He was sitting in the garden there one day when he witnessed an apple fall from a tree, which inspired him to develop his law of universal gravitation. Newton later told William Stukeley about the apple anecdote, and he included it in his book "Memoir of Sir Isaac Newton's Life," which was published in 1752.

A section of the ancient apple tree was taken onboard the space shuttle Atlantis in 2010 for a mission to the International Space Station by a NASA astronaut. As part of the 350th anniversary of the Royal Society's creation, the section of the tree was lent to the expedition by the Royal Society, a scientific organization previously led by Newton. The original apple tree at Woolsthorpe Manor is still growing today.