1894 – Norbert Wiener was born in Columbia, Missouri. He would get his BA in mathematics at age 14 but is most remembered for his theory of regulation and of signal transmission which he called “cybernetics.”

1922 – “Toll of the Sea” debuted. It was the first color movie that didn’t require a special projector, the second technicolor film ever, and the first in wide release.

2003 – The final flight of a Concorde ended when the supersonic jet touched down at Filton, Bristol, England, the airfield where it was built.

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1816 – Gaslight illuminated Philadelphia’s Chestnut Street Theatre, improving on an innovation pioneered in London. Instead of coal the gas was created from pitch, reducing the malodorous vapors caused by the wonder’s creation.

1915 – Albert Einstein presented general theory of relativity to the Prussian Academy of Sciences.

1957 – PG&E and General Electric inaugurated the Vallecitos Nuclear Power Plant in Pleasanton California. It was the first privately funded atomic power plant.

1976 – The Project Viking landers passed through superior conjunction at Mars, enabling scientists to begin an experiment that used the landers as transponders. The data collected confirmed the Shapiro Delay, becoming one of the best confirmations of General Relativity we have seen.

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1932 – The FBI Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory (known then only as the Technical Crime Laboratory) officially opened in Washington DC. It’s location was chosen because it had a sink, and its one employee, Agent Charles Appel had to borrow a microscope.

1969 – The Apollo 12 command module with its all-Navy crew splashed down safely in the Pacific Ocean, ending the second manned mission to the Moon. Credit goes to the USS Hornet for its second flawless recovery effort.

1998 – AOL announced it would purchase Netscape Communications, merging what were then two of the biggest names on the Internet.

2014 – Attackers calling themselves “Guardians Of Peace” hacked into Sony Pictures Entertainment’s internal networks, stealing data, deleting data, and placing a message and an image of a red skeleton on computer desktops throughout the company.

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1889 – A “nickel-in-the-slot player” was installed at the Palais Royale Saloon in San Francisco, the first jukebox. Up to four people could put in a coin, put on earphones and listen to a record playing on an Edison Class M phonograph.

1963 – At 5:16 PM the BBC premiered its new family science fiction show, Doctor Who, with its first episode, “An Unearthly Child.”

2004 – Blizzard launched World of Warcraft, destined to become the largest MMORPG ever made.

2015 – Blue Origin successfully launched its BE-3 rocket carrying an unoccupied New Shepard space capsule to a suborbital height of 100.5 km and landed the used rocket safely on the ground.

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