1976 – K&E produced its last slide rule, which it presented to the Smithsonian Institution. While slide rules continue to be made, especially for marine and aviation uses, K&E had been the dominant manufacturer, and this signaled the end of an era, and the rise of the electronic calculator.

In 1979 – The US space station Skylab returned to Earth scattering debris over the Indian ocean and Western Australia.

In 2008 – Apple’s second phone, the iPhone 3G went on sale, featuring 3G data connectivity.

In 1856 – Nikola Tesla was born in Smiljan, Lika, Croatia, which was then part of the Austo-Hungarian Empire. His father was a Serbian Orthodox Priest and his mother an inventor of household appliances.

In 1962 – The world’s first communication satellite, Telstar, was launched into orbit from cape Canaveral on a Delta rocket.

In 1990 – The Electronic Frontier Foundation was formally founded, immediately coming to the aid of Steve Jackson Games, who’s BBS had been seized by the Secret Service.

In 1971 – Marc Andreessen was born in Cedar Falls, Iowa. He would grow up to develop the Netscape browser, which powered the explosion of the Web in the late 1990s.

In 1979 – Voyager 2 made its closest approach to Jupiter, coming within 570,000 kilometers of the planet.

In 1982 – Disney released the movie Tron, which used the most extensive computer-generated graphics and special effects to that time.

In 1908 – Charles Urban demonstrated Kinemacolor, the first successful color motion-picture process, at a scientific meeting in Paris attended by Auguste and Louis Lumière.

In 1946 – The University of Pennsylvania’s Moore School of Electrical Engineering began summer school course on computing that inspired the EDSAC, BINAC, and, many other similar computers.

In 2011 – The Space Shuttle Atlantis launched on the final Space Shuttle mission.