In 1867 – Alfred Nobel demonstrated dynamite for the first time at Merstham Quarryl, Surrey.

1918 – Computer pioneer and MIT professor Jay Forrester was born on a cattle ranch in Climax, Nebraska. With Robert Everett, Forrester led one of the most important early computer projects, the Whirlwind, and developed and founded the field of system dynamics.

In 1965 – The Mariner 4 did a fly-by of Mars, taking 21 full pictures, the first close-up photos of another planet returned from space.

In 1919 – The British airship R34 finished the first roundtrip journey across the Atlantic from Scotland to Mineola, Long Island and back to Norfolk, England after 182 hours of flight.

In 1973 – Alexander Butterfield revealed the existence of the Nixon tapes to the US Senate committee investigating the Watergate break-in. Always make back-ups, unless you want to remain President.

In 1977 – Lightning struck a Consolidated Edison substation on the Hudson River, tripping two circuit breakers and setting off a chain of events that resulted in a massive power failure. The entire city of New York was blacked out.

In 1854 – George Eastman was born to Maria Kilbourn and George Washington Eastman in Waterville, New York. He went on to found the Eastman Kodak Company and invented the roll of film.

1949 – At an IBM sales meeting, Thomas J. Watson Jr. predicted that within 10 years, electronics would replace moving parts in machines. His vision launched IBM into dominating the computer industry.

In 2004 – Apple announced the iTunes Music Store sold its 100,000,000th downloaded song. “Somersault (Dangermouse remix)” by Zero 7 was purchased by Kevin Britten of Hays, Kansas.

1976 – K&E produced its last slide rule, which it presented to the Smithsonian Institution. While slide rules continue to be made, especially for marine and aviation uses, K&E had been the dominant manufacturer, and this signaled the end of an era, and the rise of the electronic calculator.

In 1979 – The US space station Skylab returned to Earth scattering debris over the Indian ocean and Western Australia.

In 2008 – Apple’s second phone, the iPhone 3G went on sale, featuring 3G data connectivity.

In 1856 – Nikola Tesla was born in Smiljan, Lika, Croatia, which was then part of the Austo-Hungarian Empire. His father was a Serbian Orthodox Priest and his mother an inventor of household appliances.

In 1962 – The world’s first communication satellite, Telstar, was launched into orbit from cape Canaveral on a Delta rocket.

In 1990 – The Electronic Frontier Foundation was formally founded, immediately coming to the aid of Steve Jackson Games, who’s BBS had been seized by the Secret Service.

In 1971 – Marc Andreessen was born in Cedar Falls, Iowa. He would grow up to develop the Netscape browser, which powered the explosion of the Web in the late 1990s.

In 1979 – Voyager 2 made its closest approach to Jupiter, coming within 570,000 kilometers of the planet.

In 1982 – Disney released the movie Tron, which used the most extensive computer-generated graphics and special effects to that time.

In 1908 – Charles Urban demonstrated Kinemacolor, the first successful color motion-picture process, at a scientific meeting in Paris attended by Auguste and Louis Lumière.

In 1946 – The University of Pennsylvania’s Moore School of Electrical Engineering began summer school course on computing that inspired the EDSAC, BINAC, and, many other similar computers.

In 2011 – The Space Shuttle Atlantis launched on the final Space Shuttle mission.

In 1752 – Joseph Marie Jacquard was born in Lyon, France. The weaver and inventor created the first programmable power loom and the cards he used to program it would be adapted by Herman Hollerith and others for programming the first computers.

In 1936 – Henry F. Phillips received patents for a new kind of screw and the screwdriver used with it. Endless numbers of computer cases have been held together by it since.

In 1981 – The first solar-powered aircraft, Solar Challenger, flew 163 miles from Corneille-en-Verin Airport north of Paris across the English Channel to Manston Royal Air Force Base south of London, staying aloft 5 hours and 23 minutes.

In 1920 – A U.S. Navy F5L seaplane took off from Hampton Roads, Virginia, using a radio compass for the first time. The pilots located and flew to the Battleship Ohio about 94 miles offshore.

In 1947 – The AK-47 went into production in the Soviet Union — the name stands for Automatic rifle Kalashnikov model of 1947.

In 1996 – AOL settled lawsuits in California that accused the company of misleading subscribers about monthly service charges.

In 1833 – Nicéphore Niépce died. He created the first permanent photograph in 1826 — an image of the outside of his house.

In 1954 – The BBC broadcast its first daily television news bulletin. Richard Baker read the 20-minute bulletin billed as an “Illustrated summary of the news.”

In 2001 – Rob Flickenger and friends posted details of their now legendary 12db Pringles-can antenna to boost WiFi signal distance.