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 referred 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.

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In 1983 – Fred Cohen demonstrated a way to insert code into a Unix command in order to gain control of systems. His academic adviser, Len Adelman (the A in RSA) compared the self-replicating code to a virus. It wasn’t the first code of it’s kind, but it’s the one that inspired the name.

In 1983 – At the plaza hotel in New York, Bill Gates announced Windows. It originally was called Interface Manager until Rowland Hanson convinced Gates to change the name. It would take two years before Microsoft would put it on sale.

In 2001 – The first Apple iPod went on sale. Analysts agreed that the price of $399 was too high, and Apple was too inexperienced in consumer electronics to make it a success.

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In 1967 – NASA launched a Saturn V rocket carrying Apollo 4, a test craft launched from Cape Kennedy. It was the first launch in the Apollo program and the first time using the Launch Control Center at Kennedy Space Center.

In 1979 – The NORAD computers detected a massive Soviet Nuclear Strike. Thankfully raw data from satellites were reviewed along with early warning radar, proving it was a false alarm. A technician had loaded a test tape but failed to switch the system status to “test”. Oops!

In 2004 – The Mozilla Foundation released Firefox 1.0. It featured tabbed browsing and a popup blocker.

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In 1870 – The US Weather Bureau (someday to become the National Weather Service) issued its first weather warning for a storm on the Great Lakes. It was accurate, but there was no high-pitched beep yet.

In 1887 – German immigrant Emile Berliner patented a successful system of sound recording that used flat disks instead of cylinders. The first versions were made of glass. Talk about your broken records.

In 1895 – German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen, working in his lab in Wurzburg noticed a strange effect while studying vacuum tubes covered in black cardboard. He eventually saw his own skeleton and went on to publish a paper “On a new kind of rays.” The rays would end up being called X-Rays.

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In 1960 – The JOSS (Johniac Open Shop System) conversational time-sharing service began on the Rand Corporation’s Johnniac computer. Time sharing reduced the time programmers had to wait after turning in their punch cards.

In 1994 – University of North Carolina student radio station WXYC began what is considered the world’s first Internet radio broadcast. DJ Michael Shoffner set it up. The simulcast continues today.

In 1996 – NASA launched the Mars global surveyor, humanity’s return to Mars after a 10-year absence. The mission discovered much about the Geology of the planet.

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In 1928 – The New York Times began flashing headlines outside its offices in Times Square using an electronic sign that wrapped around the 4th floor called the Motograph News Bulletin.

In 1935 – Edwin Armstrong presented his paper “A Method of Reducing Disturbances in Radio Signaling by a System of Frequency Modulation” to the New York section of the Institute of Radio Engineers, braving the skepticism of AT&T’s John Renshaw Carson who wrote previously that FM radio had no particular advantages over AM.

In 1980 – Microsoft signed a contract with IBM to create an operating system for the new IBM PC. Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer had convinced the heritage tech company that the two were not only talented enough to pull it off, but that they should be paid a royalty on the software.

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In 1895 – The US Patent office granted George B. Selden the US patent for his road engine, often considered the first car. He made good money licensing the patent, until Henry Ford crushed him in court. Hence the reason none of us drive Seldens.

In 1994 – Ken McCarthy of the Internet Gazette along with Marc Andreessen of the brand new Netscape (still called Mosaic Communications Corp) and Mark Graham held the first conference to focus on the commercial potential of the World Wide Web.

In 2007 – China’s first lunar satellite, the Chang’e 1 went into orbit around the Moon. The spacecraft operated until March 2009.

In 2007 – The Open Handset Alliance introduced a little something called the Android operating system for mobile phones. Few people expected it to seriously challenge the dominance of Blackberry and Palm.

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In 1879 – James Jacob Ritty patented the first cash register as “Ritty’s Incorruptible Cashier”. He was motivated to invent it by the no-good thieving employees at his saloon.

In 1939 – Packard Motor Co. exhibited the first air-conditioned automobile at the 40th Automobile Show in Chicago, Illinois.

In 1952 – Fresh off census duty, the UNIVAC computer projected General Dwight David Eisenhower would defeat Adlai Stevenson for President of the US. All the polls showed Stevenson had a clear advantage so CBS delayed using the projection fearing inaccuracy.

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In 1957 – The Soviet Union launched Sputnik 2 carrying the first animal ever to enter orbit, a dog named Laika. It would go on to inspire the saddest Jonathan Coulton song ever, “Space Doggity” and the band Laika and the Cosmonauts.

In 1973 – NASA launched Mariner 10 towards Mercury. It would become the first space probe to reach the planet.

In 1992 – Tim Berners-Lee posted a page describing the World Wide Web. It’s the oldest page still served on the Web.

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