1046
Monks record in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle that “no man alive…could remember so severe a winter.” It is the first historical record of the beginning of the two hundred year period of exceptionally cold weather conditions which will follow, constituting a period which will later be dubbed the “Little Ice Age.”
1709
Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirk is rescued from the desert island on which he has been shipwrecked. His story will later inspire the book Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe.
1880
The world’s first electric streetlight is installed in Wabash, Indiana.
1893
The first close-up, a shot of a man sneezing, is filmed at Edison studio, in West Orange, New Jersey.
1931
A rocket is used to deliver mail for the first time by Friedrich Schmiedl in Austria. The rocket is a 880cm V7 able to carry one hundred letters from Schoeckel bei Graz to Sankt Radegund, over a distance of about two kilometers, before descending by parachute.
1935
A polygraph machine, or lie detector, is tested for the first time by detective Leonard Keeler in Portage, Wisconsin to examine two criminals named Cecil Loniello and Tony Grignano, who are subsequently convicted of assault at a trial in which the results of the polygraph test are introduced as evidence.
1946
The first Buck Rogers toy atomic pistol is manufactured for the American Toy Fair. Price: 89¢
1947
Edwin H. Land gives the first demonstration of instant photography at a meeting of the Optical Society of America. His 40 series, model 95 Polaroid Land Camera will go on sale on November 28, 1948, at a Boston department store for US$89.75. This first model will become the first commercially successful self-developing camera system. The sepia-colored photograph it took required about one minute to develop.
1955
The first presidential news conference ever aired on network television is given by President Dwight D. Eisenhower on the ABC network.
1962
For the first time in four hundred years, the planets Neptune and Pluto align.
1964
The GI Joe action figure is first released by Hasbro.
1967
The Star Trek episode “Court Martial” first airs. (No. 20) In it, Kirk stands trial on charges of negligence after the death of a crewman. Memory Alpha entry
1983
According to Twin Galaxies, David Plummer, age 14, scores a record-setting 7,119,700 points on Atari’s Tempest after playing the game for six hours and thirty minutes at Midtown Amusements in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. Visit the official Twin Galaxies website.
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