Why won’t they let a year die without bringing in a new one on the instant, can’t they use birth control on time? I want an interregnum. The stupid years patter on with unrelenting feet, never stopping – rising to little monotonous peaks in our imaginations at festivals like New Year’s and Easter and Christmas – But, goodness, why need they do it?
1879
Thomas Alva Edison first publicly demonstrates his electric incandescent light bulb at his laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey. His bulb isn’t the first electric light, since arc lights are already in use for the illumination of large areas, such as department stores and streets lamps. Edison isn’t even the first inventor to experiment with incandescent lamps, which use electricity to heat a filament to a high temperature. However, Edison’s lamp uses the first practical filament and is the first to feature a vacuum seal sufficient to remove the oxygen from the bulb’s interior.
1955
General Motors becomes the first corporation in the United States to earn over US$1 billion in a single year when it reports to its stockholders a listed net income of US$1,189,477,082 in revenues.
1974
Popular Electronics releases its January issue, featuring the Altair 8800 computer on its cover, marking the leading edge of the age of the home computer.
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1899
In a corporate reorganization, AT&T assumes the business and property of American Bell and becomes the parent company of the Bell System.
1924
Astronomer Edwin Hubble announces the existence of another galactic system outside the Milky Way. Previously, scientists had believed the clouds of light they had observed through their telescopes were nebulae.
1953
United States electronics manufacturer Admiral introduces the first new-style NTSC monochrome-compatible television receivers. Price: US$1,175
1973
Skylab 4 and Soyuz 13 photograph the Comet Kohoutek at its perihelion, capturing the first images of a comet ever taken by from space. The media hyped Kohoutek as the “comet of the century” and scientists predicted that Kohoutek would be an Oort Cloud Object. As such, it was believed likely that this was the comet’s first visit to the inner solar system, which would result in a spectacular display of outgassing. However, Kohoutek’s display was considered a let-down, leading some to nickname it “Comet Watergate”. Infrared and visual telescopic study have led many scientists to conclude, in retrospect, that Kohoutek is actually a Kuiper belt object, which would account for its apparent rocky makeup and lack of outgassing.
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It’s a magical world, Hobbes, ol’ buddy… Let’s go exploring!
1891
Thomas Alva Edison is granted a patent for “a means for transmitting signals electrically” (wireless radio).
1939
William Shockley records in his laboratory notebook that it should be possible to replace vacuum tubes with semiconductors. Eight years later, Shockley, Walter Brattain, and John Bardeen at AT&T Bell Laboratories successfully tested the point-contact transistor. It will take approximately ten years after the creation of the point-contact transistor for transistors to replace vacuum tubes in computers.
1949
The first television station to operate in the UHF spectrum in the United States begins regular service in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
1952
The first hearing aid to use a transistor goes on sale, the model 1010 manufactured by the Sonotone Corporation in Elmsford, New York. It weighs 3.5 oz, measures 3″ x 1.5″ x 0.6″ and costs US$229.50. It consists of two sub-miniature pre-amplifier tubes and a single transistor as the final audio amplifier. The devices uses both pre-amplifier tubes and a transistor because the tubes have a superior signal to noise ratios compared to early junction transistors. Just months later, transistor production techniques will be greatly refined, eliminating noise, and these hybrid models will soon after be discontinued.
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Things need not have happened to be true. Tales and dreams are the shadow-truths that will endure when mere facts are dust and ashes, and forgot.
1612
Galileo Galilei becomes the first astronomer to observe the planet Neptune, although he catalogs it as a fixed star.
1895
The world’s first movie theater opens in the Salon Indien at the Grand Café in Paris, France. The theater makes use of a portable film camera and a functional projector, the Cinematographe, based on Edison’s experimental Kinetograph. Thirty-three people attend this first public show, at the admission price of one franc each. Their first film, La Sortie des ouvriers de l’usine Lumière, was created especially for the occasion. It shows workers leaving the Lumières’ factory in Lyon by foot, by bicycle, and by car. The theater is owned and operated by Louis and Auguste Lumières, who will refuse all offers to purchase copies of their equipment. View the film online at the Institut Lumière.
1958
Toho Company Ltd. releases The Hidden Fortress, directed by Akira Kurosawa and starring Toshiro Mifune and Misa Uehara to theaters in Japan. As with most of Kurosawa’s work, this film will be immensely influential on future film makers, including George Lucas and Quentin Tarantino. In it, two greedy peasants escort a man and woman across enemy lines. However, they do not realize that their companions are actually a princess and her general. IMDB listing Running Time: 2 hrs 19 mins
1962
The International Business Machines (IBM) Data Processing Division (DPD) releases the IBM 1420 bank transit system.
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1831
At age 22, Charles Darwin embarks from Plymouth harbor aboard the British Naval ship HMS Beagle on what will become a groundbreaking voyage of scientific discovery. The Captain, Robert FitzRoy will sail to the southern coast of South America to conduct an official government survey. Just out of university, Darwin took an unpaid position as the ship’s naturalist. He plans to be at sea for two years, but the voyage will last five years, making stops in Brazil, the Galapogos Islands, and New Zealand. From the observations he will make during the voyage, Darwin will develop his theory of evolution through natural selection, which he will publish twenty-eight years after the Beagle leaves Plymouth.
1932
The world’s largest cinema Radio City Music Hall, which boasts 6,200 seats, is opened by NBC in New York. Over a hundred thousand people wait outside the cinema, waiting for admission.
1940
Universal Pictures releases the science fiction comedy The Invisible Woman, directed by A. Edward Sutherland and starring Virginia Bruce, John Barrymore, and John Howard, to US theaters. In it, an attractive model with an ulterior motive volunteers as guinea pig to test an invisibility machine. IMDB listing
1968
The Apollo 8 returns to Earth after becoming first crewed mission to reach the Moon. Astronauts Frank Borman, James A. Lovell Jr., and William Anders made ten orbits of the Moon on Christmas Eve before their return.
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