The Great Geek Manual

1535
The first complete English edition of the Bible, printed in Antwerp as translated by Miles Coverdale, is first published.

1675
Dutch astronomer Christian Huygens patents a pocket watch.

1830
The first power printing press capable of detailed book work is patented by Isaac Adams of Boston, Massachusetts.

1905
Orville Wright flies the first flight in history to last longer than thirty minutes. The duration of the flight is 33 minutes, 17 seconds and covers twenty-one miles.

1931
The Dick Tracy comic strip, created by cartoonist Chester Gould, debuts in The Detroit Mirror. The next week, The New York Daily News and hundreds of others newspapers will pick up the syndicated series.

1934
Enrico Fermi measures the speed of a neutron.

1955
Bell Telephone successfully places the first call using the world’s first solar-powered telephone.

1957
The Space Age begins when Russia launches Sputnik I, the first artificial satellite, into Earth orbit from Baikonur, Kazakhstan aboard a converted Intercontinental Ballistic Missile. The craft will circle the globe every ninety-five minutes at almost twenty thousand miles per hour five hundred miles above the Earth for approximately three months. The name Sputnik translates to “companion” or “fellow traveler.” The 184 pound satellite transmits a radio signal which amateur radio operators around the world will be able to track, and it carries instrumentation for temperature measurement. The launch highlights the technological achievements of the Soviets and sparks some worrying questions for the U.S. government. President John F. Kennedy will proclaim that “the nation was losing the satellite-missile race with the Soviet Union because of … complacent miscalculations, penny-pinching, budget cutbacks, incredibly confused mismanagement, and wasteful rivalries and jealousies.” The fact is, though, that the Russian “lead” is largely due to the fact that the U.S. has suitably forward basing in Europe and Turkey from which to launch attacks, which allows the U.S. military to focus on short-range rocket technology. The Soviets, on the other hand, lack overseas bases, and, thus, have been forced to develop long-range rocket technology. On January 4, 1958, the satellite will re-enter the atmosphere and burned up.

Two Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory scientists tracking Sputnik find that they can determine the satellite’s orbit by analyzing the Doppler shift of its radio signals during a pass. They theorize that if a satellite’s position were known and predictable, then the Doppler shift of its signals could be used to locate a receiver on Earth, allowing navigate by satellite. Based on that premise, a system called Transit, an early forerunner of the later Global Positioning System (GPS), will be developed and, in 1964, be put into use on US nuclear deterrent submarines.

1958
The first transatlantic jet passenger service is launched by the British Overseas Airways Corporation when two De Havilland Comet lift off from London and New York, each bound for the opposite city.

1959
The Soviet Union launches Lunik III, which will become the first satellite to photograph the dark side of the Moon.

1964
The science fiction television series Stingray premieres with the episode “Stingray” in the UK. In it, a World Navy submarine is mysteriously destroyed and Troy and Phones are assigned to investigate. However, they are captured by the Aquaphibians and sentenced to life imprisonment in the undersea penal complex of Aquatraz by Titan of Titanica. The series will run for thirty-nine episodes, until June 27, 1965. The series uses marionettes rather than live actors.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5