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In 1904 – The first underground New York City subway line opened. The line ran from City Hall in lower Manhattan through Grand Central, Times Square and ended north in Harlem. Rides cost five cents.

In 1994 – HotWired launched bringing with it the first large quantity sales of banner ads. AT&T, Zima, MCI, Volvo, Club Med and 1-800-COLLECT all plunked down for the privilege.

In 2005 – The European Space Agency launched its first satellite, a micro-satellite called the SSETI Express Satellite, designed and built by European students.

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In 1888 – Thomas Edison filed a patent for something called an optical phonograph. Despite the conflicting name, it was a film camera with images 1/32nd of an inch wide. He said it would “do for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear.”

In 1907 – Guglielmo Marconi’s company began the first wireless commercial radio service, and Canada got some tech first. Glace Bay, Nova Scotia was able to transmit to Clifden, Ireland. The service was used for trans-atlantic telegraph service.

In 1990 – Col Needham posted a software package to rec.arts.movies which he called at the time “rec.arts.movies movie database.” It made the lists of movies on the newsgroup searchable. It would move to the web in 1992 and became known as IMDB, the Internet Movie Database.

In 2013 – Microsoft released Windows 8.1, a free update to the Windows 8 operating system, that among other improvements, brought back the much beloved ‘Start’ button.

Like Tech History? Get the illustrated Year in Tech History at Merritt’s Books site.