In 1896 – Wilhelm Roentgen spoke to the Würzburg Physical Medical Society where he demonstrated X-rays by photographing the hand of session chair Dr. Albert von Kolliker, a famous anatomist.

In 1960 – With a crew of two, the bathyscaphe Trieste, descended 10,911 meters in the Pacific Ocean into Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench near Guam, the deepest known point in the oceans.

In 2003 – Earth lost communication with space probe Pioneer 10 which was 12 billion-kilometers from Earth.

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

In 1939 – John Dunning’s Cyclotron split the uranium atom for the first time at Columbia University in New York City. And the Manhattan Project was on.

In 1968 – Apollo 5 lifted off carrying the first Lunar module into space.

In 1984 – Apple aired the famous “1984” commercial for the Apple Macintosh, directed by Ridley Scott.

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

In 1957 – NBC taped and broadcast President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s second inauguration address, further popularizing the taping of video.

In 1981 – The first DeLorean DMC-12 sports car rolled off the production line in Dunmurry, Northern Ireland. This one made no use of gigawatts in any way.

In 2004 – The Mars Rover Spirit abruptly stopped transmitting. Apparently too many files had been written to the flash memory and it went into fault mode.

In 2015 – Microsoft announced more details about Windows 10, the Microsoft Surface Hub, an 84-inch 4K whiteboard TV, and Windows Holographic. Using HoloStudio and HoloLens, Windows Holographic promised to bring holograms into everyday use.

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

In 1929 -The movie In Old Arizona was released. It was the first full-length talking motion picture in the US to be filmed outdoors.

In 1934 – Fuji Photo Film Co. Ltd., the photographic and electronics company known today as Fujifilm, was founded in Tokyo, Japan.

In 1981 – The inauguration of US President Ronald Reagan became the world’s first broadcast to feature live teletext subtitles for the hearing impaired.

In 2009 – The inauguration of US President Barack Obama became the most widely-streamed Presidential inauguration to that time. According to Akamai’s Net Usage Index, web traffic peaked at 5.4 million requests per minute — and two terabits per second.

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