1850 – San José was incorporated as one of the first cities in California and was the site of the first state capital. It would lose the capital to Vallejo in 1852 but eventually become the center of Silicon Valley and the de facto capital of the technology world.

http://www.sanjoseca.gov/about.asp

1884 – The first successful long-distance telephone conversation took place. Bell and Watson experimented with a line of two twelve gauge hard-drawn copper wires connecting Boston and New York City. The line worked for about ninety minutes before finally falling.

http://books.google.com/books?id=HVAiAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA149&lpg=PA149&dq=march+27+1884+long-stance&source=bl&ots=VWUQpviOz6&sig=lDHwYOgLGYD53rnVBzaDTWAllwc&hl=en&sa=X&ei=JuAfU9DbF8fEoATnxYDoCg&ved=0CFoQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=march%2027%201884%20long-stance&f=false/

1899 – Guglielmo Marconi made the first wireless transmission from France to England. A message was sent 32 miles from Wimereaux near Boulogne, France, to the South Foreland lighthouse near Dover, England. This became an important alternative to laying undersea cables for telegraphy.

http://books.google.com/books?id=wfSABTyeiV4C&pg=PA326&lpg=PA326&dq=1899+Marconi+transmission&source=bl&ots=oIkS3RAXyr&sig=64hQaAIs8x-hpg6KE9Esvm-KM6I&hl=en&sa=X&ei=-i5YT7CiNcawiQK5k9mkCw&ved=0CHAQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=1899%20Marconi%20transmission&f=false/

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

1973 – Larry Page was born in East Lansing, Michigan. He would go on to help invent and co-found Google.
http://www.biography.com/people/larry-page-12103347/

1976 – Queen Elizabeth II sent the first royal email, from the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment in Malvern as a part of a demonstration of networking technology.

http://www.computerhistory.org/timeline/?category=net/

1999 – The “Melissa” worm showed up in a file on the alt.sex usenet group and became the first successful mass-mailing worm. The worm’s creator, David L. Smith, apparently named the worm after a lap dancer in Florida.

http://www.ecs.csus.edu/csc/iac/csc250/lecture_notes/wk11/wk11_12.html

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

1925 – John Logie Baird gave his first public demonstration of his ‘Silhouette Television’ at the Selfridges department store, Oxford Street, London. It was part of the store’s birthday celebration.

http://www.vox.com/2015/3/25/8285977/mechanical-television/

1979 – The first fully functional space shuttle orbiter, Columbia, was delivered to the John F. Kennedy Space Center in preparation for its first launch.

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/reference/basics/history/index.html

1995 – Ward Cunningham installed the First Wiki, WikiWikiWeb on a $300 computer someone gave him. He connected it to the Internet, using a 14.4-baud dial-up modem.

http://c2.com/cgi/wiki/

2014 – Facebook announced it would purchase Oculus VR, makers of the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, for $2 billion.

http://time.com/37842/facebook-oculus-rift//

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

1925 – John Logie Baird gave his first public demonstration of his ‘Silhouette Television’ at the Selfridges department store, Oxford Street, London. It was part of the store’s birthday celebration.

http://www.vox.com/2015/3/25/8285977/mechanical-television/

1979 – The first fully functional space shuttle orbiter, Columbia, was delivered to the John F. Kennedy Space Center in preparation for its first launch.

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/reference/basics/history/index.html

1995 – Ward Cunningham installed the First Wiki, WikiWikiWeb on a $300 computer someone gave him. He connected it to the Internet, using a 14.4-baud dial-up modem.

http://c2.com/cgi/wiki/

2014 – Facebook announced it would purchase Oculus VR, makers of the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, for $2 billion.

http://time.com/37842/facebook-oculus-rift/

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

1802 – Richard Trevithick and Andrew Viviane of Camborne Parish in the County of Cornwall, enrolled a patent for a steam engine that could power a full-sized road locomotive. He had previously demonstrated it by driving up a hill in a car he called the “Puffing Devil”.

http://books.google.com/books?id=P6L2tXEwVDEC&pg=PA269&lpg=PA269&dq=Richard+Trevithick+patent+issued+1802&source=bl&ots=vqxN-pfHQ-&sig=6gkCDPjiQju1QURj-9bar4FMjPk&hl=en&sa=X&ei=rw9VT-mNNqb-iQKf8_m0Bg&ved=0CD8Q6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=Richard%20Trevithick%20patent%20issued%201802&f=false/

1896 – A. S. Popov made the first radio transmission in human history. Popov is said to have transmitted the words “Heinrich Hertz” from one building to another on the campus of St. Petersburg University, though the assertion was not published until years later because of the need for military secrecy.

http://www.ieeeghn.org/wiki/index.php/Aleksandr_Popov

2001 – Apple released its new operating system Mac OS X, code named Cheetah, with a retail price of $130.

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2001/03/21Mac-OS-X-Hits-Stores-This-Weekend.html

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