In 1924 – The Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company merged with its subsidiary and took its name, International Business Machines Corporation AKA IBM.

In 1989 – The Department of Defense put the NAVSTAR II-1 into orbit, the first of 24 satellites that will make up the global positioning system.

In 2011 IBM’s Watson, an AI computer system competed against Jeapardy champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. Watson cleaned up winning $77,147 to Mr. Jennings’s $24,000 and Mr. Rutter’s $21,600.

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In 1895 – French patent No. 245,032 was issued for ‘appareil servant à l’obtention et à la vision des épreuves chrono-photographiques, AKA the Cinématographe,’ a combined motion-picture camera and projector.

In 1946 – ENIAC (the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator) the first practical, all-electronic computer was unveiled at the Univ. of Pennsylvania’s Moore School of
Electronics. The New York Times carried the report the next day.

In 2001 – Microsoft gave the first public look at their new version of Windows, called Windows XP, formerly codenamed Whistler.

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In 1877 – Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated the telephone for the first time in public at the Salem Lyceum Hall. The demonstration ended with the sending of the first telephone news dispatch which was received by the Boston Globe.

In 1973 – Along Interstate 71 in Ohio, the first metric distance road signs to be erected in the US were put in place. They informed of the distance between Colubus and Cleveland and Columbus and Cincinnati.

In 2001 – The NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft touched down on 433 Eros after transmitting 69 close up pictures. It became the first spacecraft to land on an asteroid.

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In 1847 – Proud parents Samuel and Nancy welcomed their seventh and last child into the world. Thomas Edison would grow up to embody the word inventor.

In 1970 – With the launch of Osumi 5, Japan became the fourth country (after the US, USSR and France) to place a satellite into orbit.

In 1997 – The Space Shuttle Discovery launched on Mission STS-82 with the objective of making significant upgrades to the scientific capabilities of the Hubble Space Telescope. The upgrades helped turn the Hubble from a punchline, to one of the greatest telescopes ever created.

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In 1958 – Scientists at Lincoln Laboratory at MIT bounced radar signals off the planet Venus, calling it the first measurement of interplanetary distances.

In 1996 – Chess’s international grandmaster Garry Kasparov began a six-game match against IBM’s Deep Blue. Deep Blue won the first game. It was the first time that a current world champion had ever been beaten by a computer opponent under regular tournament conditions. But Kasparov took the match 4-2.

In 2009 – One of Motorola’s communication satellites Iridium 33 collided with defunct Russian satellite Kosmos-2251 destroying both. It was an unprecedented space collision.

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In 1870 – US President Ulysses S. Grant signed a bill authorizing “the Secretary of War to take observations at military stations and to warn of storms on the Great Lakes and on the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts.” This agency operating under the Signal Service eventually became the National Weather Service.

1969 – The Queen of the Skies, the Boeing 747 jumbo jet took flight for the first time. It was the first wide-body plane ever produced.

1995 – Dr. Bernard Harris became the first African-American to walk in space. Joining him, Michael Foale became the first British-born American to walk in space.

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