1899 – A US patent was issued for an “Electric Device,” invented by David Misell, which used D size batteries laid end to end in a paper tube with a light bulb and a brass reflector at the end. The batteries only lasted long enough for a “flash” of light, hence the name Flashlight.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Patent_617,592.png

1946 – The Signal Corps Engineering Laboratories in New Jersey received the first echoes off the Moon of an experiment to send the first radio transmissions through outer space.

https://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/edn-moments/4404759/Project-Diana-bounces-radio-waves-off-moon–January-10–1946

1949 – In response to Columbia’s new 33-RPM long playing record, RCA kicked off a platter war introducing the seven-inch diameter 45 rpm “single” in the US.

http://www.wired.com/2012/01/new-format/

1962 – NASA announced plans to build the C-5, a three-stage rocket launch vehicle. It became better known as the Saturn V, which launched every Apollo Moon mission.

http://history.msfc.nasa.gov/saturn_apollo/display.html

2008 – Sony BMG became the last major label to agree to sell DRM-free MP3s.
http://web.archive.org/web/20080118185346/http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=205602334&subSection=All+Stories

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1901 – The first application for a patent for Meccano was submitted. Known at first as “Mechanics Made Easy,” this invention of Frank Hornby became a worldwide success and is sold in the US under the name “Erector Set”

http://www.nzmeccano.com/Outfitsmme.php

1992 – Apple CEO John Sculley coined the term Personal Digital Assistants, or PDAs, and indicated Apple would get into the business of making them later that year.

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/REMARKS+BY+JOHN+SCULLEY,+CHAIRMAN+AND+CEO,+APPLE+COMPUTER+INC.+AT…-a011685610
https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!msg/comp.sys.mac.announce/oqfX2Jp6gWw/UaF11YI9tRkJ

2001 – Apple introduced iTunes for the Macintosh, featuring CD ripping, digital music organizing, and Internet radio.

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2001/01/09Apple-Introduces-iTunes-Worlds-Best-and-Easiest-To-Use-Jukebox-Software.html

2007 – Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduced an iPod, an Internet device and a phone all in one. It was called the iPhone and would go on sale later that summer. It was pretty popular at the time.

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/01/09Apple-Reinvents-the-Phone-with-iPhone.html

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1889 – Herman Hollerith received a patent for his electronic tabulating machine. His Tabulating Machine Company would go on to merge with three others and be called International Business Machines, known today as IBM.

http://www.google.com/patents?id=iPNEAAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract&zoom=4#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/hollerith.html

1973 – Less than a month after the last manned Moon mission, Apollo 17, the USSR launched space mission Luna 21 carrying lunar rover Lunakhod 2.
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunar/lunarussr.html

1982 – The United States vs. AT&T settlement was finalized with AT&T agreeing to divest itself of local exchanges in exchange for being allowed to start AT&T Computer Systems. Like Voltron, the behemoth would eventually reassemble.
http://www.justice.gov/atr/public/hearings/single_firm/docs/218697.htm

1986 – “The Mentor” wrote “The Conscience of a Hacker” writing “This is our world now.” It was published on Phrack and is often referred to as the Hacker Manifesto.
http://phrack.org/issues/7/3.html

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1714 – Henry Mill patented a machine for transcribing letters “one after another, as in writing.” Sadly, he died before he perfected the first typewriter.

http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/modelb/modelb_history.html

1839 – Louis Daguerre made the first announcement of his photographic system at the Académie des Sciences in Paris, though details were not presented until August of that year.
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/dagu/hd_dagu.htm

1954 – In New York at IBM headquarters, IBM and Georgetown University showed off their joint project on machine translation. More than 60 sentences were translated from Russian to English using eight grammar rules.

http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/701/701_translator.html

2003 – Apple released the public beta of its new browser, called Safari.

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2003/01/07Apple-Unveils-Safari.html

2016 – the 49th Mersenne prime was discovered by Dr. Curtis Cooper at the University of Central Missouri as part of the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search. It was written as 2^74,207,281-1.
http://www.mersenne.org/primes/?press=M74207281

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1838 – Samuel Morse, with his partner, Alfred Vail, gave the first public demonstration of their new electric telegraphic system at the Speedwell Iron Works in Morristown, NJ. They used Morse’s specially designed code to send the message “A patient waiter is no loser.”
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/morse-demonstrates-telegraph

1851 – Leon Foucault proved the rotation of the Earth experimentally. He wrote in his journal that he made the discovery at 2:00 AM working with his famous pendulum in the cellar of his house.
http://www.davidellyard.com/01-02_08%20Discoveries.pd

2004 – Apple debuted the iPod Mini, a diminutive 4GB version of the iPod available in five colors at $249.

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2004/01/06Apple-Introduces-iPod-mini.html

2016 – Oculus began taking orders for the Oculus Rift VR headset. It cost $599 and came with a remote, Xbox One controller and external sensor on a stand for $599. It was also bundled with the game Lucky’s Tale and access to Eve: Valkyrie.

https://www.oculus.com/en-us/blog/oculus-rift-pre-orders-now-open-first-shipments-march-28/

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1948 – Warner Brothers showed the very first color newsreel, featuring the Tournament of Roses Parade and the Rose Bowl football game.

https://books.google.com/books?id=Nyg3NJ4VVuAC&pg=PA114&lpg=PA114&dq=january+5+1948+newsreel+tournament+of+roses&source=bl&ots=1v6x2PwJ4c&sig=Snfz8JP62-w3DyzyoPKaY73cuyo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjagv3n89vJAhVF62MKHbL8DBQQ6AEIRjAJ#v=onepage&q=january%205%201948%20newsreel%20tournament%20of%20roses&f=false

1972 – President Richard M. Nixon announced that NASA would develop a space shuttle system, emphasizing its reliability, reusability and low cost.
http://history.nasa.gov/stsnixon.htm

1984 – Richard Stallman began working on the GNU Operating system, a free UNIX-like OS. GNU/Linux is seen as the most successful outgrowth of that project.

http://stallman.org/

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1642 – Sir Isaac Newton was born in Woolsthorpe in England and would go on to describe universal gravitation and the three laws of motion as well as star in Neal Stephenson’s The Baroque Cycle. It was December 25th at the time now as the calendar had not yet been reformed.
http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/ufhatch/pages/01-courses/current-courses/08sr-newton.htm

1958 – Sputnik I the first manmade object to orbit the earth, fell back into the atmosphere and disintegrated, after 92 days in space.

http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/missions/profile.cfm?Sort=Chron&StartYear=1950&EndYear=1959&MCode=Sputnik

2004 – One half of NASA’s Mars Rover team, Spirit, landed on Mars to analyze the planet’s rocks, looking for evidence of water. Its partner rover Opportunity was 21 days behind. Spirit is no longer active, but Opportunity keeps on chugging along.

http://marsrover.nasa.gov/mission/tl_launch.html

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1957 – Hamilton Electric held a press conference to announce the World’s First Electronic Watch. The Hamilton Electric 500 never needed winding, just batteries.
http://www.thewatchguy.com/pages/HAMILTONELECT.html

1977 – Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak incorporated Apple Computer Company. Ron Wayne famously backed out, selling his shares for $800. Ouch.
http://investor.apple.com/faq.cfm?FaqSetID=6

1999 – The US Mars Polar Lander was launched. It would spend most of the year wending its way towards Mars before it lost communication with Earth in December, presumably after crashing.
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msp98/lander/

2009 – “Satoshi Nakamoto” created a virtual currency called Bitcoin posting an announcement and 31,000 lines of code on the Internet.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/10/10/111010fa_fact_davis

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1959 – Luna 1, the first spacecraft to reach the Moon, was launched by the USSR.

http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraftDisplay.do?id=1959-012A

1979 – Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston incorporated Software Arts for the purpose of developing VisiCalc, the world’s first spreadsheet program.

http://www.cs.umd.edu/class/spring2002/cmsc434-0101/MUIseum/applications/spreadsheethistory1.html

2004 – NASA’s Stardust spacecraft successfully flew past Comet Wild 2, collecting samples it brought back to Earth two years later.
http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/photo/cometwild2.html

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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.

http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/abouthp/histnfacts/publications/garage/innovation.pdf

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.

http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/mbj/smiley/arpanet_protocol_thread.html

1985 – The Nordic Research Network NORDUnet registered the first domain name NORDU.NET.
http://www.whois.com/whois/nordu.net

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