The Great Geek Manual

1846
Benjamin Franklin Palmer receives a patent for the first artificial leg. (US No. 4,834)

1869
The first issue of the scientific journal Nature, edited by astronomer Sir Norman Lockyer, is first published. The first issue includes articles on astronomy, education, moths, plants, an obituary for chemist Thomas Graham, paleontology, and several meeting notices. Visit the journal’s official website.

1880
The first cash register is patented by James and John Ritty of Dayton, Ohio.

1922
The entrance to the tomb of King Tutankhamen is discovered in the Valley of the Kings where archaeologist Howard Carter had been making extended excavations. One of Carter’s laborers stumbled upon a stone step, the first step in a sunken stairway that ran down into the rock. Carter ordered the stairway filled and telegraphed his patron, “At last have made wonderful discovery in valley; a magnificent tomb with seals intact; recovered same for your arrival; congratulations.” On November 26, Carter, with Carnarvon standing by, will drill a small hole in the tomb’s antechamber. Inserting a candle, Carter peered into the darkness at the rich funerary goods. When asked by Carnarvon if he could see anything, the awestruck Carter will reply, “Yes, wonderful things.” In 1907, Lord Carnarvon, a wealthy English aristocrat with a passion for archeology, hired Carter and financed his excavations.
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I think we should – we need to recognize also that sometimes the actual universe is more fascinating than even our imagination, and it can spur – it can spur our imagination not just as scientists, but I also, I suspect, as – for artists.

- Lawrence Krauss in an interview with Ira Flatow.
“Connecting Science and Art,” April 8, 2011.
Originally aired on NPR.

1507
In Florence, Italy, Leonardo da Vinci is commissioned to paint a portrait of Lisa Gherardini that will later be known as the “Mona Lisa.” The husband of Lisa del Giocondo, Francesco del Giocondo, commissioned the work shortly after she had three teeth pulled and false teeth fitted.

1892
In LaPorte, Indiana, The Cushman Telephone Company (the Bell Telephone Company) launches the first automatic telephone exchange using the “step-by-step machine” invented by Almon Brown Strowger with about seventy-five subscribers. The event is commemorated with a ceremony, a special train run from Chicago, and a brass band to greet the guests. Strowger, the owner of a funeral parlor, invented the system to eliminate the need for an operator after discovering that his town’s operator had been intercepting calls for his competitor.
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1507
In Florence, Italy, Leonardo da Vinci is commissioned to paint a portrait of Lisa Gherardini that will later be known as the “Mona Lisa.” The husband of Lisa del Giocondo, Francesco del Giocondo, commissioned the work shortly after she had three teeth pulled and false teeth fitted.

1892
In LaPorte, Indiana, The Cushman Telephone Company (the Bell Telephone Company) launches the first automatic telephone exchange using the “step-by-step machine” invented by Almon Brown Strowger with about seventy-five subscribers. The event is commemorated with a ceremony, a special train run from Chicago, and a brass band to greet the guests. Strowger, the owner of a funeral parlor, invented the system to eliminate the need for an operator after discovering that his town’s operator had been intercepting calls for his competitor.
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The amazing thing about social networks, unlike other networks that are almost as interesting — networks of neurons or genes or stars or computers or all kinds of other things one can imagine — is that the nodes of a social network — the entities, the components — are themselves sentient, acting individuals who can respond to the network and actually form it themselves.

- “Social Networks Are Like the Eye” by Nicholas Christakis, 2008.

Art

• Amazing Concept Art That Makes You Wish Aliens Would Come and Kill Us All
• Could a 3-D printer be the last toy your kid will ever need?
• Cthulhu / Peanuts Mash-Up
• Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Raven’ Illustrated by Paul Gustave Doré
• Pumpkin Massacre in imitation of Calvin and Hobbes’ snowman massacre
• Serenity Halloween Corgi
• What if Charles Schulz illustrated H.P. Lovecraft?

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Audio Fiction and Podcasts

• Listen to “The Blood Garden” by Jesse Livingston at Pseudopod.
• Listen to “Chronic Offender” by Spider Robinson at Spider on the Web.
• Listen to “Her Acres of Pastoral Playground” by Mike Allen at StarShipSofa.
• Listen to “A Militant Peace” by David Klecha and Tobias S. Buckell.
• Listen to “The Secret Beach” by Tim Pratt at Fantasy Magazine.
• Listen to “Still Small Voice” by Ben Burgis at PodCastle.
• Listen to “Things” by Peter Watts (Part 2) at Beam Me Up.
• Listen to “Trying To Stay Dead” by Richard S. Crawford at Pseudopod.
• Listen to “Year of the Rabbit” by An Owomoyela at Drabblecast.

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1920
Westinghouse Electric launches radio station KDKA, which will later come to be commonly cited as being the world’s first commercial radio station.

1931
The DuPont Company, of Wilmington, Delaware, announces the first practical synthetic rubber, DuPrene, which will later be renamed Neoprene. The new rubber is expensive to produce, but it resists oil and gasoline, which natural rubber doesn’t.

1936
The British Broadcasting Corporation begins transmitting the world’s first regularly scheduled high-definition (200 lines) television service, the BBC Television Service, from Alexandra Palace, in north London. The service will later be renamed BBC1 in 1964. Its range is about thirty-five miles. Regular programs are broadcast twice a day, from 3 – 4pm, and from 9 – 10pm, Monday through Saturday.

1947
In California, Howard Hughes conducts the first and only flight of the Spruce Goose, the largest fixed-wing aircraft ever built, over Long Beach Harbor in California. The Spruce Goose, which was formally named Hercules, is the first US plane with eight engines; it boasts a wing span of 319 feet, 11 inches; it weighs over two hundred tons; and it cost twenty-five million dollars to build. It’s named the “Spruce Goose” because its entire airframe and surface is composed entirely of laminated birch wood rather than the aluminum typically used in airplane design, due to wartime restrictions. Its flight lasts about a minute, and it only achieves an altitude of seventy feet.
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