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.

MP3

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

In 1902 – Nikola Tesla filed a patent application for wireless energy transmission. The patent was granted 12 years later. We’re still waiting for the kinks to get worked out.

In 1903 – The first two-way transatlantic communication, and first wireless telegram was sent between North America and Europe. US President Teddy Roosevelt and King Edward VII. They wrote to each other how awesome the wireless telegraph was.

In 2012 – Many websites, led by Reddit, Wikipedia and others, conducted an Internet “blackout” to protest the US SOPA/PIPA bills.

MP3

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

In 1871 – Andrew S. Hallidie received a patent for an “endless wire rope way” which he would put into practice as the cable car system in San Francisco, California.

In 1882 – Thomas Edison received a patent for adding a carbon microphone to the telephone. The patent described finely divided conducting material, like carbon, between metal cups mounted on arms that attached to the mouthpiece diaphragm.

In 1928 – Anatol M. Josepho received a the first U.S. patent for a fully automatic photographic film developing machine. The Photomaton better known as a PhotoBooth in the US still survives as an app and in dark corners of subway stations.

In 1949 – The first synchrotron installed at the Radiation Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, reached its design energy of 300 MeV.

MP3

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

In 1969 – The Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5 spacecraft successfully docked in orbit. Yevgeny Khrunov moved from Soyuz-5 to Soyuz-4 and Alexei Yeliseyev went from 4 to 5, marking the first time spacefarers went up in one craft and returned to Earth in another.

In 1986 – The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) met for the first time in San Diego to supervise the design and deployment of Internet protocol.

In 2007 – Blizzard released the first expansion to it’s wildly successful World of Warcraft game. The Burning Crusade raised the level cap and allowed players flying mounts, at least when they were in Outland.

MP3

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

In 1759 – The British Museum, in Bloomsbury, London, the world’s oldest public national museum, opened to the public. Entry was free and given to ‘all studious and curious Persons’.

In 2001 – Wikipedia, the free Wiki content encyclopedia, went online as a feeder project for Nupedia, an expert-written online encyclopedia.

In 2005 – Thanks to a solar flare, ESA’s SMART-1 lunar orbiter discovered calcium, aluminium, silicon and iron – in Mare Crisium on the moon.

In 2013 – Facebook announced its ‘Graph Search’ improvements to internal search and recommendations.

MP3

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

In 1878 – Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated the telephone to Queen Victoria at her Osborne House estate on the Isle of Wight. He reached out and touched her, a faux pas which made him the first commoner in years to lay hands on the royal person.

In 1973 – Elvis Presley’s concert, “Aloha from Hawaii” was broadcast live via satellite, and set a record as the most watched broadcast by an individual entertainer in television history.

In 2005 – The Huygens space probe landed on Titan, Saturn’s largest moon. It was the first landing in the outer solar system, and the furthest from Earth.

MP3

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

In 1910 – The first public radio broadcast took place with a live performance of the opera Cavalleria rusticana sung by Enrico Caruso and others was broadcast from the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. The transmitter had 500 watts of power.

In 1928 – Three television sets were installed by GE in homes in Schenectady, New York, in order to demonstrate the first home television receiver. The picture was 1.5 inches long by 1 inch wide and 24 lines at 16 frames per second.

In 1976 – Raymond Kurzweil and the leaders of the National Federation of the Blind announced the Kurzweil Reading Machine, the first text-to-speech machine. Walter Cronkite used it to deliver his signature sign-off, “And that’s the way it was, January 13, 1976.”

MP3

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

In 1908 – Lee de Forest, a French engineer and scientist, broadcast a phonograph record show from the Eiffel Tower for an audience of less than 50 people. The show was also heard over 500 miles from the tower, becoming the first long-distance radio message transmission.

In 1964 – Jeff Bezos was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He would grow up to study computer science at Princeton, and set the standard for online shopping with his company, Amazon.com.

In 2005 – Deep Impact launched from Cape Canaveral on a Delta 2 rocket, headed to an impact with comet 9P/Tempel.

MP3

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

In 1954 – BBC TV broadcast their first ‘in-vision’ weather forecast. George Cowling of the Meteorological Office presented from the BBC’s Lime Grove studios with two hand-drawn weather charts pinned to an easel.

In 2001 – AOL and Time Warner completed their merger. At the time it was seen as a signal of the victory of the Internet over old media. Time Warner would eventually come out on top and spin AOL back out as separate company.

In 2005 – Apple introduced the first iPod Shuffle, a music player with no screen and flash memory.

In 2013 – RSS 1.0 and Reddit Developer Aaron Swartz was found dead after committing suicide.

MP3

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

In 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.

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

In 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.

In 2008 – Sony BMG became the last major label to agree to sell DRM-free MP3s.

MP3

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