In 1806 – Englishman Ralph Wedgwood received the first patent on carbon paper, which led to the initials cc to indicate a carbon copy which led to the email option to “cc” somebody.
In 1954 – IBM sounded the death knell of vacuum tubes, building the first calculating machine to use solid-state transistors. It was an experimental version of the IBM 604 Electronic Calculating Punch, that was desktop-sized and slow just like it’s vacuum-tube powered brother, but it used 5% of the power!
In 1959 – The Soviet Space Probe Luna 3 took the first photographs of the dark side of the moon. You’re welcome Pink Floyd.
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I think you meant “far side” of the moon. There is no dark side, really. Matter of fact, it’s all dark.
The “dark side of the Moon” doe slead to a lot of confusion, you’re right, though the phrase is popular and can be considered correct when speaking of radio communications.
A great full discussion of why people like Scot roll their eyes at the phrase can be found on How Stuff Works: http://science.howstuffworks.com/dark-side-of-moon.htm
I chose to use it because it allowed me to make a Pink Floyd reference.