1797
Thomas Jefferson presents a paper on the Megalonyx to the American Philosophical Society. It will be published as “A Memoir on the Discovery of Certain Bones of a Quadruped of the Clawed Kind in the Western Parts of Virginia,” Transactions of American Philosophical Society 4:255-256, along with an account by Caspar Wistar (1761-1818). This is arguably the first American publication in paleontology, but it is certainly the only paleontology paper written by Jefferson. In 1822, this huge extinct sloth will be named “Megalonyx jeffersoni” by a French naturalist. It is a bear-sized ground sloth species, over two meters tall, which was widespread in North America during the last Ice Age. Read more about Jefferson’s Ground Sloth at Yukon Beringia.
1849
Abraham Lincoln becomes the first United States president to apply for a patent. (US No. 6,469) The patent is described as a method of “Buoying vessels over shoals.” Read the patent application at Google Patents Search.
1862
The United States issues the first modern first paper money, commonly called “Greenbacks” to replace Demand Notes. Greenbacks will be issued until 1971. On the brink of bankruptcy and pressed to finance the Civil War, Congress had authorized the United States Treasury to issue paper money for the first time in the form of non-interest bearing Treasury Notes called Demand Notes in 1861. These Demand Notes bore no resemblance to modern money.
1874
Purdue University in Indiana admits its first student.
1876
Alexander Graham Bell, age 29, makes what is, in effect, the first telephone call. In an excited voice, he says “Mr. Watson, come here, I want you!” In truth, Bell didn’t immediately realize that his demonstration had worked. He was hurriedly setting things up and when he spilled acid. Bell’s plea was directed to a nearby Mr. Watson, in the hope that he would come to help quickly clean up the spill. This was Bell’s first successful experiment with the telephone, which is recorded in the March 10th entry of his Lab Notebook. The same day, Bell writes to his father about his “great success” and speculates that “the day is coming when telegraph [phone] wires will be laid on to houses just like water and gas – and friends converse with each other without leaving home.” Bell received the first telephone patent just three days earlier. Later in the year, Bell will succeed in making a phone call over outdoor lines.
1891
Almon Brown Strowger is issued a patent for his electromechanical switch to automate telephone exchanges. (US No. 447,918) Strowger didn’t invent the idea of automatic switching (it was first invented in 1879 by Connolly and McTigthe), but Strowger is the first to put it to effective use. Stowger, a Kansas City Undertaker, began designing an automatic telephone switching system after he became concerned that the telephone operator in his city was routing all of his potential customers’ calls to a competitor. Stowger built the central office switching system using a collar box and bits of scrap metal. His selector uses electromagnets and pawls to move a wiper (with contacts on the end) vertically around a bank of many other contacts to make a connection with any one of them. Strowger will form the Strowger Automatic Telephone Exchange in October 1891. This “Strowger Switch” will first be put into use in LaPorte, Indiana in 1892, and the design will be improved upon until the first “Step by Step, Up-and-Around” switching systems are in place. However, the system patented by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876 will ultimately beat out Stowger’s patent in terms of popularity. These automatic switching systems will later be vital in removing the need for human intervention in routing telephone calls.
1902
A United States court of appeals rules that Thomas Edison didn’t invent the movie camera.
1903
Typewriter salesman Harry C. Gammeter of Cleveland, Ohio, patents the first commercially successful device to simplify the printing process, the Multigraph duplicating machine. (US No. 722,404) The device, which consists of a metal drum with vertical channels running across it, allows laymen to rearrange a set of movable type to produce professionally lettered messages.
1918
Warner Brothers Studios releases its first major film, My Four Years in Germany. Visit the official Warner Bros. website.
1922
The Variety entertainment trade magazine runs an article entitled, “Radio Sweeping Country—Million Sets in Use.” Visit the official Variety website.
1926
The first Book of the Month Club mail-order selection is produced.
1948
Herbert H. Hoover, a test pilot for the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics (NACA), becomes the first civilian pilot to exceed the speed of sound in a Bell X-1 aircraft at the Edwards AirForce Base in California. His aircraft is dropped from the bomb bay of a B-29 bomber at twenty-thousand feet. His flight, which reaches a peak speed of Mach 1.065, follows in the footsteps of Chuck Yeager, the first military pilot to break the sound barrier.
1950
Radio Corporation of America (RCA) shoots the first color television recording at its Silver Spring Laboratory using the “dot sequential” system.
1955
The final episode of “The Silver Eagle” is broadcast, marking the end of the the era of adventure stories which were so prominent during the golden age of radio.
1970
Mika becomes the first satellite launched from the Kourou spaceport in French Guyana.
1972
Universal Pictures releases the science fiction film Silent Running, directed by Douglas Trumbull and starring Bruce Dern, Cliff Potts, Ron Rifkin, and Jesse Vint, to US theaters. In it, a member of the crew of a greenhouse ship rebels after receiving orders to jettison the ship’s botanical cargo, enormous domes containing the last remnants of Earth’s ecosystems. Like other Trumbull films, it will gain notoriety for its excellent special effects. However, despite the film’s extensive excellent use of models of the ship’s exterior, the film was largely shot aboard a decommissioned Essex-class fleet aircraft carrier to save on set costs. The ship in the film was, in fact, named for the real-world ship on which the film was shot, the Valley Forge. IMDB listing (MPAA Rating: G) Running Time: 1 hr 29 mins
1982
According to Twin Galaxies, Kim Jackson scores a record-setting 327,400 points playing the Namco arcade game Xevious at Goldie’s in Seattle, Washington. Visit the official Twin Galaxies website.
All nine planets align on the same side of Sun, in Syzygy.
1986
Japan’s first interplanetary spacecraft, Sakigake, passes with in 6.8 million kilometers of Halley’s Comet at 6.8 million kilometers. Visit the official Sakigake website.
1988
Art Cancro, using the web handle “IGnatius T. Foobar”, launches the Uncensored! bulletin board system (BBS) on an Altos 586 UNIX System, running a customized version of the Citadel BBS Software called Citadel/UX. The BBS will outlive nearly all of its contemporaries, shutting off dial-up access in 2001, but maintaining a web presence. Visit the official Uncensored! BBS.
1994
3DO announces that Goldstar and Samsung Electronics have been licensed to manufacture 3DO Interactive Multiplayer video game systems.
1995
The sysop of The Davy Jones Locker bulletin board system (BBS), Richard D. Kenadek of Millbury, Massachusetts is sentenced in US District Court to six months’ home detention and two years’ probation for violating copyright laws with his BBS. Charges will be filed in August 1994, following a 1992 raid, and in December 1994, Kenadek will plead guilty to one of the two charges brought against him.
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