In 1903 – Ford sold its first car to Dr. Ernst Pfenning of Chicago. The two-cylinder Model A was assembled at Mack Avenue Plant in Detroit.

In 1985 – Commodore introduced the Amiga personal computer at the Vivian Beaumont Theater in New York’s Lincoln Center. Amiga cost $1,295 and shipped with a base configuration of 256K of RAM.

In 1996 – The first commercial HDTV signal was broadcast in North Carolina by WRAL channel 32 operating at 100 kilowatts with an antenna 1,750 feet above the ground. 200 members of the press watched the broadcast at WRAL.

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In 1933 – Wiley Post returned to Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, New York, 7 days, 18 hours, 49 minutes after leaving, becoming the fastest person to circumnavigate the Earth by air and the first to do it solo.

In 1962 – The first Mariner space probe to Venus had to be destroyed shortly after lift-off because of “improper operation of the Atlas airborne beacon equipment.” The error was caused by a missing overbar in the program that must have disappeared during hand transcription.

In 1997 – Apple announced OS 8 for Macintosh computers. It added easier Internet integration and a 3D look to the OS.

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In 1975 – Xerox announced its withdrawal from computer mainframe manufacturing. The company did indicate it would continue activities in other computer-related businesses like computer disk drives, serial printers, and apparently giving away secrets to companies like Apple and Microsoft.

In 2002 – WorldCom filed for the largest Chapter 11 bankruptcy in U.S. history. It was the number two long-distance phone company, at a time when that still meant something. It would end up changing its name back to MCI, and its remains exists as Verizon’s business division.

In 2011 – The Space Shuttle Atlantis landed at Kennedy’s Shuttle Landing Facility Runway 15, ending the US space shuttle missions.

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In 1960 – In a first for missiles, a Polaris A1 test vehicle was successfully launched from the USS George Washington submarine off the coast of Cape Canaveral, Florida.

In 1969 – In a first for humans, Neil Armstrong and Edwin A. “Buzz” Aldrin Jr. Successfully landed the Lunar Module “Eagle” on the surface of the Moon as part of the Apollo 11 mission and became the first humans to ever set foot on earth’s satellite.

In 1976 – In a first for robots, the Viking 1 lander successfully set down on on Mars in the Chryse Planitia and performed its mission.

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