The Great Geek Manual

1612
Simon Marius becomes the first person to observe the Andromeda galaxy through a telescope. He will describe his discovery in the preface to his Mundus Jovialis as, “like the flame of a candle seen through horn.”

1877
Thomas Alva Edison files for a patent on the phonograph.

1958
Arthur L. Schawlow and Charles H. Townes publishes “Infrared and Optical Masers” describing what will later be known as the laser (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation) while employed at Bell Labs. Read the original document here.

1964
The first Italian satellite, San Marco 1, is launched.

1965
Gemini 6A, crewed by Wally Schirra and Thomas Stafford, is launched from Cape Kennedy, Florida. Four orbits later, it achieves the first space rendezvous with Gemini 7. The two crafts orbit the Earth together for over five hours.
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1807
A meteorite falls in Weston, Connecticut at 6:30am, making a hole five feet long and 4.5 feet wide. It is the first meteorite to be seen falling in the New World since the arrival of European settlers. Yale Professor Benjamin Silliman will write a description of the event and perform a chemical analysis of recovered meteorite, the first performed in the US. As such, it receives a great deal of press attention.

1900
German physicist Max Planck presents his ideas on quantum physics to a meeting of the German Physics Society. The theoretical derivation of his black-body radiation law will revolutionize scientists’ understanding of physics, specifically of quantum mechanics. His theory demonstrates that, in certain situations, energy exhibits characteristics of physical matter. It predicts the spectral intensity of electromagnetic radiation at all wavelengths from a black body at a given temperature. Part of the theory suggests that energy exists in discrete packets, which he calls “quanta.”

1902
The British cable ship Silvertown begins laying the first transpacific telegraph cable, which will reach from San Francisco to Honolulu. The ship will lay cable across 2,277 nautical miles in two weeks, until it lands near Honolulu on January 1, 1903. The first test message will be sent the same day, and transmission of public messages through the cable will begin on January 5, 1903.

1903
The Wright Brothers make their first attempt to fly the Wright Flyer at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

1908
George Albert Smith holds the first exhibition of the Kinemacolor motion picture process to the general public, in London. Kinemacolor is a two-color additive color process for photographing and projecting a black-and-white film behind alternating red and green filters.
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It isn’t evil that is ruining the earth, but mediocrity. The crime is not that Nero played while Rome burned, but that he played badly.

- The Final Diary by Ned Rorem, 1974.

1843
Charles Dickens publishes “A Christmas Carol.” Six thousand copies of the first edition will be sold.

1913
The horror film The Werewolf, directed by Henry MacRae and starring Clarence Burton, to US theaters. The silent short film is the very first film to feature a werewolf. The film is framed as an old Indian legend. In it, a jilted Navajo woman turned witch raises her daughter to reap a horrible vengeance on all men, in the form of a werewolf. IMDB listing Running Time: 18 mins

In order to settle an antitrust suit filed in Portland, AT&T pledges to dispose of its Western Union telegraph stock, provide long distance connection to Independent telephone systems, and not to purchase any more Independent telephone companies except as approved by the Interstate Commerce Commission in a letter to the Attorney General of the United States which will later be referred to as the “Kingsbury Commitment.” The letter will historically be considered the mark of the beginning of AT&T’s monopoly, as the settlement establishes AT&T as a government sanctioned monopoly.

1962
Relay I, the first US communications satellite to transmit facsimile, telephone, television, and teleprinter signals is launched on a Thor-Delta rocket from the Atlantic Missile Range from Cape Canaveral. It will transmit its first test patterns on January 3, 1963, once the solar cells had fully charged.

1972
Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt begin the sixth and final Extra-vehicular activity (EVA) or “Moonwalk” of Apollo 17. It will be the last manned mission to the Moon of the 20th century.
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You take a step, then another. That’s the journey. But to take a step with your eyes open is not a journey at all, it’s a remaking of your own mind. You see things that you never saw before. Things never seen by the eyes of human beings.

- Ender in Exile by Orson Scott Card, 2008.

Life, this anti-entropy, ceaselessly reloaded with energy, is a climbing force, toward order amidst chaos, toward light, among the darkness of the indefinite, toward the mystic dream of Love, between the fire which devours itself and the silence of the Cold.

- The Nobel Prize acceptance speech of Albert Claude, “The Coming Age of the Cell,” December 12, 1974.

Read the speech in its entirety at Nobelprize.org.

1893
The first US patent for aerial photography is issued to Cornele B. Adams of Augusta, Georgia. (US No. 510,758) His method of photogrammetry can produce a topographic map by means of photographing the same tract of land from different points from an unmanned stationary balloon on a tether. “The pictures obtained can be converted into topographic maps, to delineate not only the horizontal positions and distances of the objects correctly, but from which the altitude of the objects can be quickly and accurately ascertained, and such results obtained without the aid of other field instruments.”

1896
Guglielmo Marconi gives the first public demonstration of his radio equipment at Toynbee Hall in East London. He is introduced and assisted by William Preece, chief electrician of the British Post Office. The event drew a large audience and considerable attention from the press. While Marconi taps the key on the transmitter, Preece carries the receiver box around the room, demonstrating that there are no wires, as the bell in the receiver rings each time Marconi closes the key.

1901
Guglielmo Marconi successfully transmits a Morse Code letter “S” via radio telegraph 2,137 miles across the Atlantic Ocean, from a 10kW station at Poldhu in Cornwall, England to Percy Wright Page in Signal Hill, St. John’s, Newfoundland at approximately 4:30 UTC. Such a connection won’t be established again for another ten years.

1903
The American Multigraph Sales Company of Cleveland, Ohio begins manufacturing the Multigraph duplicating machine, the first commercially successful device to simplify the printing process. It was patented on March 10, 1903 by inventor, Harry C. Gammeter, a typewriter salesman. Consisting of a metal drum with vertical channels running across it, it allows laymen to arrange moveable type with a retaining foot into the channels to roll out professionally lettered solicitation letters.
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