When was the first spacecraft to fly by Uranus?

Voyager 2 made its Uranus flyby on 24 January 1986, becoming the first spacecraft to study the planet directly. The encounter revealed the planet’s strange sideways rotation, faint rings, magnetic field, and previously unknown moons. Uranus had been little more than a fuzzy disk before Voyager 2’s visit, so the mission dramatically expanded knowledge of the ice giant. It remains the only spacecraft ever to have visited Uranus at close range.