In 1957 – The Soviet Union launched Sputnik 2 carrying the first animal ever to enter orbit, a dog named Laika. It would go on to inspire the saddest Jonathan Coulton song ever, space doggity and the band Laika and the Cosmonauts.

In 1973 – NASA launched Mariner 10 towards Mercury. It would become the first space probe to reach the planet.

In 1992 – Tim Berners-Lee posted a page describing the World Wide Web. It’s the oldest page still served on the Web.

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In 1815 – George Boole was born in Lincolnshire, England AND he became a mathematician who laid down the foundations Boolean logic XOR Boolean Algebra. Search engine power users everywhere thank him.

In 1920 – KDKA in Pittsburgh started broadcasting as the first commercial radio station in the US. The first broadcast? Election results. Actual results, not projections.

In 1936 – BBC Television Service went on the air with the world’s first regular “high definition” service. Back then high definition meant 200 lines not 1080. The channel became BBC1 in 1964.

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In 1870 – The United States Weather Bureau, now known as the National Weather Service, made its first weather report. 24 observers sent reports by telegram to Washington DC.

In 1963 – The largest radio telescope ever constructed, the Arecibo observatory opened in Arecibo Puerto Rico. It would be used for many major discoveries including the first direct imaging of an asteroid.

In 1968 – The MPAA and 2 other industry organisations introduced the voluntary ratings system. G meant good for all ages, M meant mature audiences, R was restricted and X… well you know what X means. It would serve as a model for future voluntary systems like that used by the video game industry.

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In 2000 – The Soyuz TM-31 launched, carrying Expedition 1 the first resident crew to the International Space Station, including Yuri Gidzenko, Sergei Krikalev and William Shepherd. The TM-31 was used as the crew’s lifeboat while on the station.

In 2000 – Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG) and Napster agreed to develop a service for swapping and sharing music. The service never materialized.

In 2007 – Nintendo of Japan finally ended support for the repair of FamiCom game consoles, the Japanese name for NES, citing a shortage of parts. End of an 8-bit era.

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In 1938 – Orson Welles pwned the US radio audience with his famous broadcast of War of the Worlds. It was correctly introduced as theater but those not paying attention were fooled into thinking the play was the real thing.

In 1945 – The first conference on Digital Computer Technique was held at MIT. The National Research Council, Subcommittee Z on Calculating Machines and Computation sponsored the conference.

In 1987 – NEC started selling the first 16-bit home entertainment system, called the TurboGrafx-16 Entertainment SuperSystem or in Japan, the shorter catchier PC Engine. It was originally more popular in Japan than the FamiCom, which we North Americans call the NES.

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In 1675 – Gottfreid Leibniz wrote the integral sign in an unpublished manuscript, a sign that would later haunt the nightmares of students and be widely misapplied on blackboards in movies. So happy Integral Day!

In 1969 – The first ever computer to computer link was established on the ARPANET. UCLA student Charley Kline sent the characters l and o to Stanford the connection crashed before he could finish sending ‘login’ The Internet has been crashy right from the start.

In 1998 – The Space Shuttle Discovery blasted off on STS-95 with 77-year old John Glenn on board, making him the oldest person to go into space.

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In 1793 – Eli Whitney applied to patent his improved cotton gin, capable of cleaning 50 pounds of lint per day, and powering patent metaphors and arguments for centuries to come.

In 1955 – A pair of proud Seattle parents welcomed their new son into the world, having no idea he would become one of the most loved and hated man of all time. Happy birthday William Henry Gates the third. You know him as Bill.

In 1998 – A different Bill, President Bill Clinton signed into law the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, making it illegal for you to use computers the way they were designed to be used, if big companies didn’t want you to.

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In 1904 – The first underground New York City subway line opened. The line ran from City Hall in lower Manhattan through Grand Central, Times Square and ended north in Harlem. Rides cost five cents.

In 1994 – HotWired (later to become Wired.com) launched bringing with it the first large quantity sales of banner ads. AT&T, Zima, MCI, Volvo, Club Med and 1-800-COLLECT all plunked down for the privilege.

In 2005 – The European Space Agency launched its first satellite, a micro-satellite called the SSETI Express Satellite, designed and built by European students.

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In 1936 – The first electric generator went into full operation at Hoover Dam. About a month after President Roosevelt had dedicated the dam and tried to encourage people to call it the Boulder Dam.

In 1992 – Software deployment issues in CAD, the new ambulance dispatch system in London caused 30-45 deaths. Poor training, a memory leak and no load testing contributed to the failure.

In 2004 – Apple debuted the iPod photo, capable of displaying digital photographs and album art on a built-in color screen.

In 2012 – Microsoft’s Windows 8 operating system went on sale, with its tile-based start screen.

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In 1955 Tappan introduced the first microwave oven for home use. It sold for $1,295. Raytheon developed the Radarrange after engineer Percy LeBaron Spencer was working on an active radar set and accidentally melted a candy bar in his pocket.

In 1977 – VAX/VMS was born. At a shareholder meeting, DEC the Digital Equipment Corporation released VMS v1.0 the first version of what we later be called OpenVMS, along with the VAX 11/780 architecture which increased the PDP-11 address space.

In 2001 – Microsoft Windows XP hit retail shelves for the first time.

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