In 1939 -John Dunning’s Cyclotron split the uranium atom for the first time at Columbia University in New York City. And the Manhattan Project was on.

In 1968 – Apollo 5 lifted off carrying the first Lunar module into space.

In 1984 – Apple aired the famous “1984” commercial for the Apple Macintosh, directed by Ridley Scott.

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In 1957 – NBC taped and broadcast President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s second inauguration address, further popularizing the taping of video.

In 1981 – The first DeLorean DMC-12 sports car rolled off the production line in Dunmurry, Northern Ireland. This one made no use of gigawatts in any way.

In 2004 – The Mars Rover Spirit abruptly stopped transmitting. Apparently too many files had been written to the flash memory and it went into fault mode.

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

In 1929 -The movie In Old Arizona was released. It was the first full-length talking motion picture in the U.S. to be filmed outdoors.

In 1934 – Fuji Photo Film Co. Ltd., the photographic and electronics company known today as Fujifilm, was founded in Tokyo, Japan.

In 1981 – The inauguration of US President Ronald Reagan is the world’s first broadcast to feature live teletext subtitles for the hearing impaired.

In 2009 – The inauguration of US President Barack Obama became the most widely-streamed Presidential inauguration to that date. According to Akamai’s Net Usage Index, web traffic peaked at 5.4 million requests per minute — and 2 terabits per second.

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

In 1883 -The first electric lighting system using overhead wires went into service in Roselle, New Jersey.

In 1983 – Apple released the Lisa, the second commercial computer with a graphical user interface (after the Xerox Star). It only cost $9,995 too!

In 1986 – Brain became the first computer virus released into the wild. It was a boot sector virus transmitted by floppy disks. The Farooq Alvi Brothers of Lahore, Pakistan created the virus.

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