Today in Tech History with Tom Merritt

In 1781 – English astronomer William Herschel observed what he initially thought was a comet but turned out to be the planet Uranus. It was the first planet to be discovered using a telescope. In 1882 – At the Royal…Read more →

In 1790 – John Frederic Daniell was born. He would grow up to invent the Daniell cell, a battery that supplied an even current during continuous operation, thus making battery power practical. In 1889 – Almon B. Strowger of Kansas…Read more →

In 105 – Ts’ai Lun demonstrated his process for making paper to the Han emperor in China. He probably didn’t invent it, but he certainly turned it into an industry for the first time. And the industry still survives 20…Read more →

In 1876 – Alexander Graham Bell spoke the immortal words “Mr. Watson, come here. I want you.” over the a telephone in his Boston laboratory, summoning his assistant from the next room. It is widely considered the first instance of…Read more →

In 1948 – The University of California at Berkeley and the Atomic Energy Commission announced the artificial production of mesons using the 184-inch cyclotron at the university’s Radiation Laboratory. In 1961 – Sputnik 9 successfully launched, carrying a human dummy…Read more →

In 1955 – Doug Ross demonstrated the Director tape for MIT’s Whirlwind machine, the first digital computer with real-time text and graphics. The idea of the Director Tape was to allow multiple problems to be read by the computer in…Read more →

In 1876 – Alexander Graham Bell received a US patent for an “Improvement in Telegraphy” (No.174,465) which established the principle of bidirectional signals that made the telephone possible. In 1926 – The first successful Transatlantic telephone call was placed between…Read more →

In 1937 – Valentina Tereshkova was born in the Yaroslavl region of Russia. She would grow up to become the first woman in space and only woman ever to fly solo in space. In 1992 – The first media-hyped computer…Read more →

In 1975 – The Homebrew Computer Club, held its first meeting in the garage of Gordon French in Menlo Park, California. 32 people showed up for the first meeting. John Draper, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs were some of the…Read more →

In 1976 – The first Freon-cooled Cray-1 supercomputer was shipped to Los Alamos Laboratories, in New Mexico at a cost of $19,000,000. In 2000 – The Sony PlayStation 2 went on sale in Japan. In 2007 – Election Day was…Read more →

In 1847 – In Edinburgh, Scotland, an expert in vocal physiology and elocution welcomed his newborn son into the world. He was named after his father. Alexander Graham Bell would go on to become synonymous with the telephone. In 1885…Read more →

In 1908 – Gabriel Lippman proposed using a series of lenses at a picture’s surface instead of opaque barrier lines, allowing three dimensional pictures. He titled his presentation to the French Academy of Sciences “La Photographie Integral”. In 1983 –…Read more →

In 1896 – Henri Becquerel discovered images of uranium rocks had appeared on a photographic plate without exposure to the sun. He had discovered natural radiation. In 1995 – A little over a year after starting the website in January…Read more →

In 1947 – The first closed-circuit broadcast of a surgical operation showed procedures to observers in classrooms at Johns Hopkins University. In 1954 – The Westinghouse H840CK15 went on sale in the New York area. It is generally agreed to…Read more →

In 1891 – David Sarnoff was born near Minsk. He would go on to befriend Marconi and rise to the Presidency of RCA and be integral in founding NBC. In 1932 – English physicist James Chadwick published a letter on…Read more →