1920 – The first commercial radio station, 8MK, began operating in Michigan. Now, WWJ, it is owned by CBS.

http://nationalradioclub.org/articles/1stfacts.txt

1930 – W2XCR began broadcasting at 2.1-2.2 mHz from Jersey City, New Jersey, with the first demonstration of telecasts meant for the home. A half-hour program, hosted by the cartoonist Harry Hirschfeld, was viewed on screens placed in a store in the Hotel Ansonia, the Hearst building, and a home at 98 Riverside Drive.

http://www.earlytelevision.org/w2xcr.html

1970 – John Carmack was born in Shawnee Mission, Kansas. He would grow up to co-found id software and bring the world Doom, Wolfenstein and Quake.

http://www.notablebiographies.com/news/A-Ca/Carmack-John.html#b

2017 – Microsoft opened preoders for the XBox One X, a console which supported 4K video games.

https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/20/16160650/microsoft-xbox-one-x-project-scorpio-edition-preorders

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1839 – At a crowded meeting of the Paris Academy of Sciences, Louis Daguerre demonstrated the process of making photos called daguerreotypes.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v144/n3642/abs/144341b0.html

1906 – Philo Farnsworth was born on Indian Creek in Beaver County, Utah. He would grow up to inspire the beloved professor character on Futurama. He also gets credit for inventing the first completely electronic television.

http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blfarnsworth.htm

1934 – Gordon Bell was born in Kirksville, Missouri. He would grow up to help build PDP computers and oversee the development of DEC’s VAX series.

http://www.thocp.net/biographies/bell_gordon.htm

2003 – Dave Winer posted an experiment with RSS enclosures. It allowed subscribers with the right aggregator to have an MP3 of an interview Chris Lydon did delivered with no click-wait. This would lead to Christopher Lydon becoming the first podcaster before it was called podcasting.

http://scripting.com/2003/08.html#When:9:49:05PM

Read Tom’s science fiction and other fiction books at Merritt’s Books site.

1937 – The first Frequency Modulation or FM radio permit was granted to W1XOJ, in Paxton, Massachusetts. It went on the air with scheduled programs in May 1939 and operated with the highest output power (50 kilowatts) granted prior to World War II.

http://nationalradioclub.org/articles/1stfacts.txt

1947 – Eight years after William Hewlett and David Packard founded it, Hewlett-Packard was officially incorporated.

http://books.google.com/books?id=KMSH_wzyDaEC&pg=PA113&lpg=PA113&dq=august+18+1947+hewlett+packard+incorporated&source=bl&ots=YfkA9g_uAY&sig=mDYAGbyTlXh-xMlVMVbqAEwJlCk&hl=en&sa=X&ei=gckHUoTJBI7OyAHKl4C4Aw&ved=0CHsQ6AEwCTgK#v=onepage&q=august%2018%201947%20hewlett%20packard%20incorporated&f=false

2005 – The largest and most widespread power outage in history happened on the Indonesian island of Java, affecting almost 100 million people.

https://www.upi.com/Millions-affected-in-Indonesia-blackout/37061124395633/

Read Tom’s science fiction and other fiction books at Merritt’s Books site.

1944 – Larry Ellison was born in the Bronx in New York City. 9 months later, after contracting pneumonia, he was taken to Chicago to be raised by his Aunt and Uncle. He would grow up to drop out of college, move to Berkeley and co-found Software Development Labs, one of the most successful corporations in history. Today it’s known as Oracle.

http://nordic.businessinsider.com/the-rise-of-larry-ellison-the-jet-setting-billionaire-founder-of-oracle-2017-1/

1982 – Royal Philips Electronics manufactured the world’s first Compact Disc (not counting test pressings) at a Polygram factory in Langenhagen, just outside of Hanover, Germany. The CD was “The Visitors” by Abba.

http://www.newscenter.philips.com/main/standard/about/news/press/20070816_25th_anniversary_cd.wpd

2000 – Nielsen/NetRatings announced that according to their data, more than half (52%) of United States households had Internet access for the first time. This confirmed Media Metrix’s report from April which estimated that 51% of US households now had Internet access.

http://www.zdnet.com/news/more-u-s-households-online-than-not/109736

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1989 – A solar flare created a geomagnetic storm that caused three hard drives to fail in an otherwise fault-tolerant system at the Toronto Stock Exchange. This prevented access to critical market data, leading the exchange to be shut down for three hours.

http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/9.15.html

1993 – Ian Murdock announced the Debian Linux distribution system. The name combined his then girlfriend Debra’s name with his own, Deb-Ian. And now you know how to properly pronounce it.

http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/project-history/ch-intro.en.html

1994 – The IBM Simon went on sale, combining a mobile phone with computer functions. It weighed 500 grams, could run apps and be linked to a fax machine, selling for $899. The word smartphone hadn’t even been coined yet.

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-28802053

1995 – The first version Microsoft’s Web browser, Internet Explorer 1, debuted. It was based on Mosaic, which Microsoft had licensed from Spyglass Inc.

http://gizmodo.com/5614186/internet-explorer-turns-15-today

2011 – Xiaomi launched its first phone, the M1 or ‘Xiaomi Phone’ with a 1.5 GHz dual core chip and 1 GB of RAM for ¥1,999.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/08/16/xiaomi-m1-with-miui-os-a-310-phone-with-1-5ghz-dual-core-soc-a/

Read Tom’s science fiction and other fiction books at Merritt’s Books site.