In 1951 -TV viewers witnessed the live detonation of an atomic bomb blast, as KTLA in Los Angeles broadcast the explosion of a nuclear device dropped on Frenchman Flats, Nevada.

In 1972 – The first scientific handheld calculator, the famous HP-35, was introduced for $395 by Hewlett-Packard. It was the first handheld calculator to perform logarithmic and trigonometric functions with one keystroke.

In 1985 – Shortly after its founding the November before, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence kicked off. SETI Institute began operations.

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In 1958 – The United States entered the space age with the successful launch of the Explorer I satellite. Data from the satellite confirmed the existence of the Van Allen radiation belt circling the Earth.

In 1961 – The U.S. launched a 4-year-old male chimpanzee named Ham on a Mercury-Redstone 2 rocket into suborbital flight to test the capabilities of the Mercury capsule.

In 1971 – Astronauts Alan Shepard, Stuart Roosa, and Edgar Mitchell lifted off on the Apollo 14 mission to the Fra Mauro Highlands on the Moon.

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In 1925 – Doug Engelbart was born in Portland, Oregon. He is most famous for his work on the first computer Mouse, but also worked on many other innovations involving graphical user interfaces, hypertext and networks.

In 1975 – Hungarian Interior Design instructor Erno Rubik filed for a patent on his twisty toy cubes. The patent worked out for him. Erno Rubik became the first self-made millionaire from the Communist bloc.

In 2007 – Microsoft released Windows Vista for home use. Though not as many homes would end up using it as other versions of Windows.

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In 1886 – Karl Benz submitted a patent for his Benz Patent Motorwagen, a three-wheeler vehicle with a one-cylinder four-stroke gasoline engine. The world’s first patent for a practical internal combustion engine powered automobile. Previous automobiles had been steam-powered.

In 1895 – Charles Proteus Steinmetz received a patent for a “system of distribution by alternating currents.” His engineering work made a widespread power grid practical.

In 1901 – In Brooklyn, Allen B. DuMont was born. He would go on to perfect the cathode ray tube, sell the first practical commercial television and found the first national US TV network to fail. It was eventually sold to Fox Television Stations.

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