1959 – Christopher Cockerell’s Hovercraft crossed the English Channel for the first time, celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Frenchman Louis Bleriot’s historic first cross-Channel heavier-than-air flight.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schoolradio/subjects/history/britainsince1930s/transport/hovercraft

1990 – Microsoft became the first software company to exceed $1 billion in sales in a single year, reporting revenues of $1.18 billion for fiscal year 1990.

https://www.phase3.net/1990-july-25th-microsoft-revenue-breaks-1-billion/

2010 – Wikileaks published classified documents about the War in Afghanistan, one of the largest leaks in US. military history.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/25/afghanistan-war-logs-military-leaks

2016 – The Solar Impulse 2 landed in Abu Dhabi a year and two days after taking off on a journey to circumnavigate the globe on solar power. André Borschberg and Bertrand Piccard alternated flying the plane but still needed rest between legs. The plane itself was capable of lying nonstop.

http://www.theverge.com/2016/7/26/12283128/solar-impulse-2-completes-round-the-world-trip-sun

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1874 – Woodward and Evans Light filed a patent for “Artificial light by means of electricity” with the Canadian Department of Agriculture. Woodward later sold the patent to Thomas Edison, who patented a different and more successful version of the incandescent lamp in the US.

http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/cool/002027-2003-e.html

1950 – The Bumper 8, made of a German V-2 missile lower stage and WAC-Corporal upper stage launched from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. It was the first launch from what would become the Kennedy Space Center.

https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/first-launch-cape-canaveral-florida-july-24-1950

1969 – Apollo 11 arrived safely in the Pacific Ocean, ending the first manned mission to land on the Moon.

http://airandspace.si.edu/collections/imagery/apollo/as11/a11facts.htm

2013 – Google announced the Chromecast, a $35 HDMI stick, powered by USB, that streamed video from the Internet and other devices to a TV.

http://gigaom.com/2013/07/24/google-announces-chromecast-a-dongle-to-stream-online-videos-to-your-tv/

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1903 – Ford sold its first car to Dr. Ernst Pfenning of Chicago. The two-cylinder Model A was assembled at Mack Avenue Plant in Detroit.

https://corporate.ford.com/history.html

1985 – Commodore introduced the Amiga personal computer at the Vivian Beaumont Theater in New York’s Lincoln Center. Amiga cost $1,295 and shipped with a base configuration of 256K of RAM.
http://technologizer.com/2010/07/23/amiga/

1996 – The first commercial HDTV signal was broadcast in North Carolina by WRAL channel 32 operating at 100 kilowatts with an antenna 1,750 feet above the ground. 200 members of the press watched the broadcast at WRAL.

http://www.wral.com/wral-tv/story/1069461/

2016 – Russian Fyodor Konyukhov set a new record flying around the world in a balloon from Northan, Australia in 11 days and 6 hours. He broke Steve Fossett’s record by 2 days.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-36873594

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1933 – Wiley Post returned to Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, New York, 7 days, 18 hours, 49 minutes after leaving, becoming the fastest person to circumnavigate the Earth by air and the first to do it solo.
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/wiley-post-flies-solo-around-the-world

1962 – The first Mariner space probe to Venus had to be destroyed shortly after lift-off because of “improper operation of the Atlas airborne beacon equipment.” The error was caused by a missing overbar in the program that must have disappeared during hand transcription.

http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FB0A16F63C59137B93C1AB178CD85F468685F9
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overbar

1997 – Apple announced OS 8 for Macintosh computers. It added easier Internet integration and a 3D look to the OS.

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1997_articles/sep97/applesep97.html

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1975 – Xerox announced its withdrawal from computer mainframe manufacturing. The company did indicate it would continue activities in other computer-related businesses like computer disk drives, serial printers, and apparently giving away secrets to companies like Apple and Microsoft.
http://www.andrews.edu/~calkins/profess/SDSigma7.htm

2002 – WorldCom filed for the largest Chapter 11 bankruptcy in US history. It was the number two long-distance phone company, at a time when that still meant something. It would end up changing its name back to MCI, and its remains exists as Verizon’s business division.

http://money.cnn.com/2002/07/19/news/worldcom_bankruptcy/

2011 – The Space Shuttle Atlantis landed at Kennedy Space Center’s Shuttle Landing Facility, Runway 15, ending the US space shuttle missions.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/shuttlemissions/sts135/launch/sts-135_mission-overview.html

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