In 1904 – The first underground New York City subway line opened. The line ran from City Hall in lower Manhattan through Grand Central, Times Square and ended north in Harlem. Rides cost five cents.

In 1994 – HotWired (later to become Wired.com) launched bringing with it the first large quantity sales of banner ads. AT&T, Zima, MCI, Volvo, Club Med and 1-800-COLLECT all plunked down for the privilege.

In 2005 – The European Space Agency launched its first satellite, a micro-satellite called the SSETI Express Satellite, designed and built by European students.

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In 1936 – The first electric generator went into full operation at Hoover Dam. About a month after President Roosevelt had dedicated the dam and tried to encourage people to call it the Boulder Dam.

In 1992 – Software deployment issues in CAD, the new ambulance dispatch system in London caused 30-45 deaths. Poor training, a memory leak and no load testing contributed to the failure.

In 2004 – Apple debuted the iPod photo, capable of displaying digital photographs and album art on a built-in color screen.

In 2012 – Microsoft’s Windows 8 operating system went on sale, with its tile-based start screen.

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In 1955 Tappan introduced the first microwave oven for home use. It sold for $1,295. Raytheon developed the Radarrange after engineer Percy LeBaron Spencer was working on an active radar set and accidentally melted a candy bar in his pocket.

In 1977 – VAX/VMS was born. At a shareholder meeting, DEC the Digital Equipment Corporation released VMS v1.0 the first version of what we later be called OpenVMS, along with the VAX 11/780 architecture which increased the PDP-11 address space.

In 2001 – Microsoft Windows XP hit retail shelves for the first time.

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In 1861 – The First Transcontinental Telegraph line across the United States was completed, ending the need for the Pony Express which had only been around for a year and a half. Pony unemployment skyrocketed.

In 1998 – NASA Launched Deep Space 1, it’s mission to seek out an asteroid, specifically, asteroid 9969 Braille. When that mission ended up being only partially successful, it went after Comet Borrelly where it got some choice information.

In 2003 – The Concorde made its last commercial flight, a victim of air traffic reductions and rising maintenance costs. 100 passengers, including actress Joan Collins, model Christie Brinkley, made the flight from New York to London in it’s usual three and a half hours. Flights have been slower ever since.

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In 1906 – Alberto Santos-Dumont flew an airplane in the first heavier-than-air flight in Europe at Champs de Bagatelle, Paris, France. Some argue he should be credited with the first flight at all. But that’s a long controversy.

In 1995 – A federal judge for the first time authorized a wiretap of a computer network, leading to hacking charges against a young Argentinean for breaking into sensitive U.S. government networks.

In 2001 – Apple announced their new music player, the iPod. Apple used PortalPlayer’s reference platform and hired Pixo to design and implement the user interface. The iPod became the first massively successful digital music player.

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