In 1922 – The BBC sent its first transmission from station 2LO at Marconi House London. The first newscast was read by Arthur Burrows, first Director of Programmes.

In 1971 – The American space probe Mariner 9 began orbiting Mars becoming the first spacecraft to successfully orbit another planet.

In 2007 – The last Direct Current electrical distribution system in the US was shut down by Con Edison in New York.

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In 1851 – The first public message was sent on the submarine telegraph cable under the English Channel between Dover, England and Calais, France.

In 1982 – 15-year-old Scott Safran of Cherry Hill New Jersey set the world record score on Asteroids. His record stood for 27 years, the longest-running high score in videogame history.

1983 – The MIT TX-0, an experimental transistorized computer, was brought back to life for the last time at The Computer Museum in Marlboro, Massachusetts.

Like Tech History? Purchase Tom Merritt’s Chronology of Tech History at Merritt’s Books site.

In 1946 – The US Army held a contest between an abacus used by Kiyoshi Matsuzaki from Japan’s postal ministry and an electric calculator operated by Private Thomas Nathan Wood. The abacus won 4 to 1.

In 1970 – The Oregon Highway Divisions made an ill-advised attempt to destroy a dead whale by blowing it up with explosives. The results, documented by local news, eventually became Internet gold as the “exploding whale” video.

In 1990 – Tim Berners-Lee published a formal proposal for a hypertext project. The proposal refers to a “web of information nodes” and implementing “browsers” The project eventually became the World Wide Web.

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In 1675 – Gottfried Leibniz demonstrated integral calculus for the first time to find the area under the graph of good ol y=f(x). That is, if you believe what he wrote in his notebooks.

In 1930 – Albert Einstein, yes that Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard received a US patent for a refrigerator that required no electricity, just a heat source. Electrolux bought up the patents.

In 2006 – The Sony PS3 went on sale with a built-in Blu-ray player and hard drive.

Like Tech History? Purchase Tom Merritt’s Chronology of Tech History at Merritt’s Books site.