In 1811 – Elisha Otis was born. He invented a safety brake that prevented elevators from falling if the hoisting cable broke. Thank him every time you get in an elevator.

In 1958 – The nuclear submarine USS Nautilus became the first watercraft to reach the geographic North Pole. Commanding Officer, Commander William R. Anderson, announced to his crew, “For the world, our country, and the Navy – the North Pole.”

In 1977 – Tandy Corp of Texas holds a New York press conference to announce that it will manufacture the TRS-80.

In 1870 – The world’s first underground tube railway, (the Met had been the first underground non-tube railway) Tower Subway, opened in London, running from Lower Thames street to Vine Street. It closed after 4 months of operation.

1880: Parliament officially adopted Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) as the official time of Great Britain.

In 1902 – Mina Spiegel Rees was born in Ohio. and became one of the earliest female computer pioneers. She ran the Office of Naval Research, where she organized work on early computers like the Harvard Mark I.

In 1873 – Andrew Smith Hallidie took his San Francisco cable car for its first test run. The tracks ran from Clay and Kearny Streets for 2800 feet to a hill 307 feet above.

In 1967 – The US Navy recalled Captain Grace Murray Hopper to active duty to help develop the programming language COBOL. /

In 1981 – MTV began broadcasting in the United States, playing The Buggles Video Kileld the Radio Star, and changing how we view music forever.

1910 – Dr. Hawley Crippen was arrested when the boat he was on docked in Quebec. He was the first person to be caught as a result of a wireless telegraph.

In 1971 – Apollo 15 astronauts David Scott and James Irwin became the first humans to take a drive on the Moon in the lunar rover.

In 1976 – NASA issued a press release describing one photo taken by Viking 1 on Mars as resembling “a human head.” Conspiracy theories about the face on Mars still run today, though close-up pictures from the Mars Express mission have debunked most of them.

1889 – Vladimir Zworykin was born in Russia. He would go on to earn the title “Father of Television” (one of several called that) for his work on the iconoscope and the kinescope. He worked on television for RCA.

In 1898 – The Winton Motor Carriage Company placed a magazine advertisement in Scientific American calling on readers to “dispense with a horse.” It’s the earliest known automobile ad.

In 1971 – The Apollo 15 mission landed the first lunar rover onto the moon.

In 1947 – ENIAC was switched on after being transferred to the Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland. It operated continuously until October 2 1955.

In 1951 – A recording was made of Beethoven’s 9th by EMI that eventually became used to justify the diameter of the CD.

In 1958 – President Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, creating the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

In 1858 – The first use of fingerprints as identification took place in India. William James Herschel, magistrate of Nuddea, India requested local businessman Rajyadhar Konai make a hand print on the back of a contract. Herschel wanted to “frighten [Konai] out of all thought of repudiating his signature.”

In 1997 – Dell announced its entry into the work station market with the Dell Workstation 400.

In 2000 – Ted Kekatos celebrated the First System Administrator Appreciation Day. He had been inspired by an HP ad showing people bringing gifts to their System Administrator. The day is celebrated annually on the last Friday of July.

In 1949 – The first jet-powered airliner, the de Havilland Comet, made its first flight. Previously jet engines had only been used to power small fighter aircraft.

In 1981, Microsoft bought the rights for QDOS (Quick and Dirty Operating System) from Seattle Computer Products for $25,000.

In 1993 – Microsoft released Windows NT 3.1, completing its attempt to build an advanced 32-bit operating system from scratch.

In 1996 – Microsoft releases Beta 2 of Internet Explorer 3.0, touting customization options like parental controls and the ability to handle shared applications and Web phone calls.

In 1989 – Cornell student Robert Tappan Morris became the first person indicted under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act after releasing a worm on the Internet. Morris claimed his worm was just measuring the size of the Internet.

In 2004 – Motorola announced that its next generation of cell phones would be iTunes-compatible. This first Apple phone, the Rokr, was not to meet with much success.

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.

In 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.

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