In 1876 – Alexander Graham Bell spoke the immortal words “Mr. Watson, come here. I want you.” over the a telephone in his Boston laboratory, summoning his assistant from the next room. It is widely considered the first instance of someone using technology when they bloody well could have just got up and spoke to someone in person. It is also widely considered the first phone call.

In 1891 – Almon B. Strowger was issued a U.S. patent for his electromechanical switch to automate a telephone exchange. Strowger wasn’t the first to think of of automatic switching but he was the first to make a practical switch.

In 2000 -The Nasdaq hit 5,048.62, the highest point of the dot-com boom. The bust began the next day.

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In 1948 – The University of California at Berkeley and the Atomic Energy Commission announced the artificial production of mesons using the 184-inch cyclotron at the university’s Radiation Laboratory.

In 1961 – Sputnik 9 successfully launched, carrying a human dummy and and the dog Chernushka. It completed 1 orbit and was successfully recovered upon return. Yes, the dog made it back unharmed.

In 2011 – Space Shuttle Discovery on Mission STS-133 made its final landing after 39 flights.

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In 1955 – Doug Ross demonstrated the Director tape for MIT’s Whirlwind machine, the first digital computer with real-time text and graphics. The idea of the Director Tape was to allow multiple problems to be read by the computer in one session without humans having to intervene and change tapes. In other words, an operating system.

In 1978 – The first radio episode of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams, was transmitted on BBC Radio 4. Some credit Adams with accidentally predicting the PDA and smartphone.

In 1979 – Philips publicly demonstrated a prototype of an optical digital audio disc at a press conference called “Philips Introduces Compact Disc.”

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In 1876 – Alexander Graham Bell received a US patent for an “Improvement in Telegraphy” (No.174,465) which established the principle of bidirectional signals that made the telephone possible.

In 1926 – The first successful Transatlantic telephone call was placed between New York City and London. Transatlantic service began the following year at $75 a minute.

In 1994 – The Supreme Court found that 2 Live Crew’s parody of Roy Orbison’s “Oh Pretty Woman” was fair use, and not a violation of copyright, thus ensuring the future of The Onion.

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In 1937 – Valentina Tereshkova was born in the Yaroslavl region of Russia. She would grow up to become the first woman in space and only woman ever to fly solo in space.

In 1992 – The first media-hyped computer virus reached fever pitch as the Michelangelo boot sector virus began to affect computers. Worldwide catastrophe did not follow.

In 2009 – NASA launched the Kepler space observatory, with a mission to discover Earth-like planets orbiting other stars.

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