1710 – The Statute of Anne entered into force in Great Britain. The statute ended the practice of copyright being enforced by the Stationer’s Guild under the licensing act and for the first time granted copyright to authors.
1943 – Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania began work on the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer known as ENIAC. The machine that was synonymous for years with the word computer, could perform 5,000 additions per second.
2003 – British Airways and Air France announced the retirement of all Concorde supersonic jets. After a quarter century of supersonic speeds, passengers in the 21st century would go slower than those who flew in the late 20th century.
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