In 1959 – Luna 1, the first spacecraft to reach the Moon, was launched by the U.S.S.R.
In 1979 – Software Arts was incorporated by founders Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston for the purpose of developing VisiCalc, the world’s first spreadsheet program.
In 2004 – NASA’s Stardust spacecraft successfully flew past Comet Wild 2, collecting samples it brought back to Earth 2 years later.
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In 1939 – In a garage in Palo Alto, California, William Hewlett and David Packard founded Hewlett-Packard a little company that made audio oscillators. And later TouchPads.
In 1983 – A new Internet and Transmission Control Protocol (Yep called IP/TCP by some at the time, weird I know) went into effect on the ARPANet, replacing the Network Control Protocol. The result was a new ARPA Internet combining ARPA hosts of the time new systems.
In 1985 – The Nordic Research Network NORDUnet registered the first domain name NORDU.NET.
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In 1923 – The chimes of Big Ben were broadcast on radio for the first time by the BBC, beginning a new year’s tradition.
In 1938 – Cops in Indianapolis put Indiana University professor Rolla Harger’s drunkometer to its first practical New Year’s Eve test as a breath analyzer. Suspected tipplers blew into a balloon and the air was mixed with a chemical solution that turned darker the more alcohol was present. The drunkometer was replaced in 1958 by the more portable Breathalyzer.
In 2001 – Microsoft provided its last day of support for Windows 95 making it officially “obsolete” according to the Microsoft Lifecycle policy, after only 6 years.
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In 1873 – A number of gentlemen in New York City founded the American Metrological Society, feeling that a change to the Metric System was needed by civilized nations. 100 years later their defunct and gallons, miles, and Fahrenheit rule the US.
In 1913 – Dr William David Coolidge patent for improvements in tungsten and methods for making the same for use as filaments in incandescent lights. It made light bulbs last a lot longer. Too bad that in 1928, GE got a court to declare the patent was not an invention.
In 1924 – Astronomer Edwin Hubble announced that he had found stars in the spiral nebula Andromeda, and using Leavitt’s formula measured them as 860,000 light years away proving Andromeda was a separate galaxy. He would go on to find a dozen more galaxies.
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In 1949 – TV station KC2XAK of Bridgeport, Connecticut became the first Ultra high frequency (UHF) television station to operate a daily schedule.
In 1952 – The first hearing aid using a junction transistor went on sale, the model 1010 manufactured by the Sonotone Corporation in Elmsford, NY, U.S.
In 1959 – Physicist Richard Feynman gave a talk called “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom”, in which he suggested it should be possible to make nanoscale machines that can arrange atoms the way we want. So happy birthday nanotechnology.
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In 1886 – Josephine Garis Cochrane of Shelbyville, Illinois received the first U.S. patent for a commercially successful dishwasher. Dishes fit in compartments in a wheel that turned inside a copper boiler. Her company eventually became KitchenAid.
In 1895 – The first commercial presentation of the famous Lumière Cinématographe took place at the Salon Indien of the Grand Café in Paris. Invited payees got ten film.
In 2005 – The European Space Agency and the Galileo Joint launched GIOVE-A the first test-bed satellite for the Galileo geo-location system.
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In 1571 – In Well der Stadt, Wurttemberg of the then Holy Roman Empire, Johannes Kepler was born. His theories like the laws of planetary motion came in handy for Isaac Newton.
In 1968 – Apollo 8 splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, ending the first manned orbit of the Moon.
In 2007 – Warner Music Group became the third major music label to begin selling DRM-free MP3s through Amazon.
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In 1791 – At 44 Crosby Row, Walworth Road, London, England, (we think), Betsy and Benjamin welcomed their son Charles Babbage into the world. He would grow up to make a difference…. engine.
In 1933 – Edwin Armstrong received a patent for his method of eliminating static in a radio broadcast using frequency modulation. He would license out the technology but many companies would embrace FM radio without his permission and he spent much of his later life battling in court.
In 1982 – Time’s January 3rd issue arrived on newsstands with the computer on the cover as Machine of the Year. It was the first non-human to gain the honor since the Man of the Year concept started in 1927 with Charles Lindbergh.
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In 1741- In Uppsala, Sweden, Anders Celsius first used a Delisle thermometer he had marked up with 100 gradations between boiling and freezing. It was the first use of the centigrade scale of temperature.
In 1959 – Sony announced its first television set, the transistor-based TV-301. It would go on sale in Japan the following May.
In 1990 – Tim Berners-Lee with help from CERN computer scientist Robert Cailliau and others— set up the first successful communication between a Web browser and server via the Internet.
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In 1955 – After an advertising misprint Continental Air Defense Command, CONAD started getting calls from children for Santa Claus, so Director of Operations Colonel Harry Shoup, had his staff check the radar for signs of St. Nick. NORAD was created in 1958 and they’ve kept up the tracking tradition ever since.
In 1968: The crew of Apollo 8 delivered a live, televised Christmas Eve broadcast after becoming the first humans to orbit another space body.
In 1999 – The very seasonal HTML 4.01 was published by the World Wide Web Consortium. HTML 4.01 remained the current HTML standard for well over a decade.
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