1981 – The first mouse integrated with a personal computer made its appearance with the Xerox Star workstation.

1995 – The Justice Department sued to block Microsoft’s purchase of Intuit, claiming the acquisition would raise prices and squash innovation. Intuit still exists but Microsoft Money is long gone.

1998 – Roughly 8,000 AOL subscribers joined the first known live interspecies chat with Koko the gorilla. Koko signed her answers; Penny Patterson interpreted them; and an AOL chat facilitator entered them in the computer.

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

1884 – The New York Times reported that “sending mails by electricity” was to be investigated by the Post Office Committee of the US House, by providing for contracts with an existing telegraph company. The article promised it could lead to 10 cent telegrams!

1970 – The Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization entered into force.

1986 – Design flaws made worse by human error during a safety test, led to the worst nuclear disaster yet, and a partial meltdown at the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant.

1999 – RePlay TV began shipping the first Digital Video Recorder. It could pause and rewind live TV as well as schedule shows to be recorded. Models ranged from being able to store 6 hours to 26 hours of recorded shows.

2014 – A team of archaeologists hired by Fuel Entertainment and Xbox Entertainment Studios uncovered a pile of buried Atari E.T. games in a landfill in Alamogordo, New Mexico. The games were dumped 31 years before after the game flopped in sales.

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

1944 – Lt. Carter Harman of the 1st Air Commando Group rescued four men from the jungle in Burma, flying a Sikorsky YR-4 helicopter. It was the first combat rescue by helicopters in the US Army Air Forces.

1953 – Watson and Crick presented their findings on the double helical structure of DNA in the publication Nature. They noted that the structure “suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material.” 50 Years later the Human Genome Project had concluded sequencing the genome and published a follow-on in Nature on their vision for genetic research.

1961 – Robert Noyce received the US patent for the silicon-based integrated circuit. He went on to found the Intel Corporation with Gordon E. Moore in 1968. Noyce fought a long patent rights battle with Jack Kilby who invented a germanium based integrated circuit.

2014 – Microsoft completed its acquisition of Nokia’s handset business. Nokia retained its mapping, research and network infrastructure business. Microsoft gained most of the mobile phone parts of the company.

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