1934 – The steam locomotive Flying Scotsman became the first to officially exceed 100 mph.
1955 – A Colorado Springs youngster misdialed a telephone number set up for inquiries about Santa and accidentally called the Combat Operations Center of the Continental Air Defense Command. COC Commander Col. Harry Shoup told the child “There may be a guy called Santa Claus at the North Pole, but he’s not the one I worry about coming from that direction.”
1999 – British Aerospace and Marconi Electronic Systems merged to form BAE Systems, Europe’s largest defense contractor and the fourth largest aerospace firm in the world. Marconi had been founded by Guglielmo Marconi in 1897.
2006 – Microsoft released Windows Vista for business use. Vista improved on security over Windows XP, but took criticism for other features, and never rivaled Windows XP in adoption.
Read Tom’s science fiction and other fiction books at Merritt’s Books site.