In 1857 – Heinrich Rudolf Hertz was born in Hamburg, Germany. Hertz made key discoveries in optics but also transmitted and received electromagnetic waves and gave his name to the common unit of frequency, Hz. In 1995 – Chicago stock broker Steve Fossett completed the first hot air balloon flight over Pacific Ocean. At...

In 1937- Waldo Waterman flew the first test flight of the Arrowbile, and found the aircraft easy to fly and virtually spin and stall proof. It is considered the first successful flying car to actually fly. In 1947 – Edwin H. Land demonstrated his one-step instant camera and film at a meeting of the...

In 1962 The United States became the second nation to put a man into orbit. John Glenn piloted the Mercury-Atlas 6 Friendship 7 spacecraft to a successful conclusion of the mission. In 1986 – A Soviet Proton launcher boosted the base block of the Mir space station into orbit. In 2004 – Apple’s first...

In 1856 – Professor Hamilton L. Smith of Gambier, Ohio received the first U.S. patent for the tintype photographic picture process. It described a method for “the obtaining of positive impressions upon a japanned surface previously prepared upon an iron or other metallic or mineral sheet or plate by means of collodion and a...