In 1857 – Heinrich Rudolf Hertz was born in Hamburg, Germany. Hertz made key discoveries in optics but also transmitted and received electromagnetic waves and gave his name to the common unit of frequency, Hz.

In 1995 – Chicago stock broker Steve Fossett completed the first hot air balloon flight over Pacific Ocean. At 9600 km it was also the longest baloon flight.

1995 – President Clinton signed an Executive Order directing the declassification of intelligence imagery acquired by the CORONA, ARGON and LANYARD U.S. photo-reconnaissance satellites. More than 860,000 images of the Earth’s surface, collected between 1960 and 1972 were made public.

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In 1937- Waldo Waterman flew the first test flight of the Arrowbile, and found the aircraft easy to fly and virtually spin and stall proof. It is considered the first successful flying car to actually fly.

In 1947 – Edwin H. Land demonstrated his one-step instant camera and film at a meeting of the Optical Society of America. The first Polaroid camera was on sale within two years.

In 1986 – The Legend of Zelda, the first in the ongoing series, was released in Japan for Nintendo’s Famicom console.

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In 1900 – John F. Pickering of Haiti received a US patent for his design of an airship.

In 1962 The United States became the second nation to put a man into orbit. John Glenn piloted the Mercury-Atlas 6 Friendship 7 spacecraft to a successful conclusion of the mission.

In 1986 – A Soviet Proton launcher boosted the base block of the Mir space station into orbit.

In 2004 – Apple’s first iPod Mini arrived in Apple retail stores and online. It was the first variation on the original iPod.

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In 1856 – Professor Hamilton L. Smith of Gambier, Ohio received the first U.S. patent for the tintype photographic picture process. It described a method for “the obtaining of positive impressions upon a japanned surface previously prepared upon an iron or other metallic or mineral sheet or plate by means of collodion and a solution of a salt of silver.”

In 1878 – Thomas Edison received a patent for the phonograph. His first recording was of “Mary Had a Little Lamb” spoken into a large horn which transmitted vibrations to a needle that cut the recording on a hand-rotated cylinder.

In 2002 – Odyssey, the first of many operational Mars vehicles began its mission to map the planet.

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