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.