1935 – Krueger’s Cream Ale and Krueger’s Finest Beer went on sale in Richmond, Virginia in cans, developed by the American Can Company. Cans protected beer better than translucent bottles.
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/first-canned-beer-goes-on-sale
1950 – Percy LeBaron Spencer received a patent for a “Method of Treating Foodstuffs” which we would recognize as the microwave oven. Spencer was working on an active radar set and accidentally melted a candy bar in his pocket.
http://www.google.com/patents?id=x_tuAAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract&zoom=4#v=onepage&q&f=false
1984 – The original Macintosh was introduced becoming the first commercially successful personal computer to feature a mouse and a graphical user interface rather than a command line interface.
https://www.cultofmac.com/263298/watch-steve-jobs-introduce-macintosh-january-24-1984/
Read Tom’s science fiction and other fiction books at Merritt’s Books site.