“On Tuesday, 13 March 1781, slightly before midnight, (William) Herschel spotted a new and unidentified disc-like object moving through the constellation of Gemini. This discovery would change his entire career, and become one of the legends of Romantic science.”
That object, Uranus, was the first new planet discovered in more than a thousand years.
Because Herschel worked in tandem with his younger sister Caroline, he and she were both eventually granted yearly research stipends from the government, hers being “the first professional salary ever paid to a woman scientist in Britain.”
Holmes, R. (2009). The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science. NY: Pantheon. (Cited in the Washington Post book review by Michael Dirda.) Amazon has the Homes book available for the Kindle.