1889 – Herman Hollerith received a patent for his electronic tabulating machine. His Tabulating Machine Company would go on to merge with three others and be called International Business Machines, known today as IBM.
http://www.google.com/patents?id=iPNEAAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract&zoom=4#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/hollerith.html
1973 – Less than a month after the last manned Moon mission, Apollo 17, the USSR launched space mission Luna 21 carrying lunar rover Lunakhod 2.
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunar/lunarussr.html
1982 – The United States vs. AT&T settlement was finalized with AT&T agreeing to divest itself of local exchanges in exchange for being allowed to start AT&T Computer Systems. Like Voltron, the behemoth would eventually reassemble.
http://www.justice.gov/atr/public/hearings/single_firm/docs/218697.htm
1986 – “The Mentor” wrote “The Conscience of a Hacker” writing “This is our world now.” It was published on Phrack and is often referred to as the Hacker Manifesto.
http://phrack.org/issues/7/3.html
Read Tom’s science fiction and other fiction books at Merritt’s Books site.