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.

1947 – Edwin H. Land demonstrated his one-step instant camera and film at a meeting of the Optical Society of America. The first Polaroid camera was on sale within two years.

1986 – The Legend of Zelda, the first in the ongoing series, was released in Japan for Nintendo’s Famicom console.

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1900 – John F. Pickering of Haiti received a US patent for his design of an airship.

1962 – Following the USSR, the United States put its first man into orbit. John Glenn piloted the Mercury-Atlas 6 Friendship 7 spacecraft to a successful conclusion of the mission.

1986 – A Soviet Proton launcher boosted the base block of the Mir space station into orbit.

2004 – Apple’s first iPod Mini arrived in Apple retail stores and online. It was the first size variation of the iPod.

2013 – Sony announced the PlayStation 4 without giving out price or even showing what the hardware would look like.

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1856 – Professor Hamilton L. Smith of Gambier, Ohio received the first US 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 solution of a salt of silver.”

1878 – Thomas Edison received a US patent (No. 200521) for the phonograph. His first recording was of “Mary Had a Little Lamb” spoken into a large horn which transmitted vibrations to a needle that cut the recording on a hand-rotated cylinder.

1990 – John and Thomas Knoll launched a small software package for manipulating images meant to be bundled with scanners. It was called Photoshop.

2002 – Odyssey, the first of six current operational Mars vehicles began its mission to map the planet.

2014 – Facebook announced it was acquiring messaging app WhatsApp for $19 billion.

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1838 – In the small town of Chirlitz of the Austrian Empire Ernst Mach was born. His work in aerodynamics and supersonic speeds, led to the unit of measurement that bears his name. He would die one day after his birthday in 1916.

1908 -Dr Lee de Forest received a patent for “Space Telegraphy” which described a three-element vacuum tube later called the triode, which could amplify feeble electric currents, and proved especially useful for radio reception. Sorry it was not about Moon telegrams.

1977 – The Enterprise space shuttle orbiter prototype made the first of five “captive-inactive” flight tests, testing structural integrity and performance handling, while attached to the top of a 747 jumbo jet.

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