In 1850 – The first U.S. patent for push-key operation of a calculating machine was issued to Dubois D. Parmelee of New Paltz, N.Y.

In 1974 – The U.S. space probe Mariner 10 returned the first close-up images of Venus and became the first spacecraft to use a gravity assist from one planet to help it reach another.

In 1999 – The first Victoria’s Secret online fashion show became the first major webcast, attracting an estimated 1.5 million viewers worldwide. Proving even back then the Internet is for shopping.

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In 1890 – Thomas Edison received a patent for the first quadruplex telegraph, which could send two messages simultaneously in each direction. One message consisted of an electric signal of varying strength, while the second was a signal of varying polarity.

In 1998 – Noël Godin, a Belgian who made a practice of pieing rich and famous people struck a pie against the face of Bill Gates. Gates did not press charges.

In 2004 – Mark Zuckerberg and a few other guys at Harvard launch TheFacebook so Harvard students can look up and hook up with each other. They would eventually expand the service to the world. And drop the “the”.

In 1879 – the first practically usable incandescent filament electric light bulb was demonstrated to an 700 people by Joseph Wilson Swan at the Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle upon Tyne.

In 1966 – The Soviet Luna 9 spacecraft landed safely on the moon in the Ocean of Storms. It was the first lunar soft landing and first transmission of photographic data from the Moon to Earth.

In 2011 – The Number Resource Organization announced that the free pool of available IPv4 addresses was fully depleted. The IANA allocated the last of the blocks equally between the five Regional Internet Registries.

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In 1046 – English monks recorded “no man then alive could remember so severe a winter as this was.” Their analog weather blog entry recorded the beginning of the Little Ice Age.

In 1931 – Friedrich Schmiedl launched the first rocket mail (V-7, Experimental Rocket 7) with 102 pieces of mail between Schöckl and St. Radegund, Austria.

In 1935 – Detective Leonarde Keeler, co-inventor of the Keeler polygraph, tried out the lie detector on two suspected criminals in Portage, Wisconsin. Both suspects were convicted of assault.

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