In 1877 – Thomas Edison tested out his new phonograph invention, by recording the first lines of the poem “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” He recreated the event in 1927.

In 1957 – Responding to Sputnik, the United States launched the Vanguard TV3. The rocket only made it a little over a meter off the launchpad before it fell back and was destroyed. A fuel leak was thought to have caused the failure.

In 2006 – NASA revealed photographs from the Martian Global Surveyor, of two craters called Terra Sirenum and Centauri Montes which appeared to show the evidence that water existed on the surface Mars, as recently as five years before.

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In 1766 – James Christie held his first sale on Pall Mall in London. Christie’s still operates auctions today and is much more civilised than EBAY.

In 1901 – At 2156 Tripp Avenue in Chicago, Elias and Flora welcomed their new baby boy into the world. They had no idea at the time that Mickey Mouse had also come into the world along with their son, Walt Disney.

In 1901 – Physicist Werner Heisenberg was born. We may not know both his precise position and precise momentum at the same time, but we are certain he was born in Wurzburg, Germany.

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In 1985 – The Cray X-MP/48 began operation at the San Diego Supercomputer Center. It almost doubled the speed of other machines with a parallel processing system, which ran at 420 megaflops.

In 1996 – General Motors began delivery of the EV1, an electric vehicle that would become well-loved by its drivers then be taken back in 2002 and sent to car-crushers.

In 1998 – The space shuttle Endeavour lifted off from Cape Canaveral, carrying the first American-built component of the International Space Station, a connecting node, known as Unity.

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In 1992 – The first text message was sent on Vodafone’s U.K. network from a PC to a mobile device with the message “Merry Christmas.”

In 1994 – The Sony PlayStation game console went on sale in Japan.

In 1999 – NASA lost radio contact with the Mars Polar Lander moments before the spacecraft entered the Martian atmosphere. It just wasn’t a good year for Mars exploration.

In 2001 – In Bryant Park in Manhattan, Inventor Dean Kamen unveiled a secret project with the codename “Ginger” that Steve Jobs reportedly said would cause cities to be re-architected. The Segway Personal Transporter has become iconic for mall cops and mailmen.

Like Tech History? Purchase Tom Merritt’s Chronology of Tech History at Merritt’s Books site.