In 1978 – Texas Instruments introduced the Speak & Spell, the first electronic duplication of the human vocal tract on a single chip of silicon. It used linear predictive coding to make a mathematical model of the human vocal tract and predict a speech sample. In 1997 – Philippe Kahn took the first cameraphone...

In 1943 – Hungarians László and Georg Bíró, while living in Argentina, patented the first successful implementation of the ballpoint pen. 1977 – A few days after going on sale, Apple began shipping the Apple II for the first time. In 2003 – The Spirit Rover launched on a Delta II rocket, beginning NASA’s...

In 1902 – Joe Horn and Frank Hardart opened the first US Automat at 818 Chestnut St. in Philadelphia. The waiterless restaurant charged a nickel for most dishes. In 1931 – Robert Goddard received a patent for rocket-fueled aircraft design (U.S. No. 1,809,271). Sadly we do not have a lot of rocket-planes in operation....

In 1637 – Rene Descartes published “Discourse on the Method for Guiding One’s Reason and Searching for Truth in the Sciences”, which formed the basis of the modern scientific method. It’s also the source of the quote “I think, therefore I am.” In 1949 – George Orwell’s book 1984 was published. The book still...