Today in Tech History with Tom Merritt

In 1881 – Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell formed the Oriental Telephone Company in agreement with the Anglo-Indian Telephone Company Ltd.. The company was licensed to sell telephones in Greece, Turkey, South Africa, India, Japan, China and several other…Read more →

In 1935 – Krueger’s Cream Ale and Krueger’s Finest Beer went on sale in Richmond, Virginia in cans, developed by the American Can Company. Cans protected beer better than translucent bottles. In 1950 – Percy LeBaron Spencer received a patent…Read more →

In 1896 – Wilhelm Roentgen spoke to the Würzburg Physical Medical Society where he demonstrated X-rays by photographing the hand of session chair Dr. Albert von Kolliker, a famous anatomist. In 1960 – With a crew of two, the bathyscaphe…Read more →

In 1939 -John Dunning’s Cyclotron split the uranium atom for the first time at Columbia University in New York City. And the Manhattan Project was on. In 1968 – Apollo 5 lifted off carrying the first Lunar module into space.…Read more →

In 1957 – NBC taped and broadcast President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s second inauguration address, further popularizing the taping of video. In 1981 – The first DeLorean DMC-12 sports car rolled off the production line in Dunmurry, Northern Ireland. This one…Read more →

In 1929 -The movie “In Old Arizona” was released. It was the first full-length talking motion picture in the U.S. to be filmed outdoors. In 1934 – Fuji Photo Film Co. Ltd., the photographic and electronics company known today as…Read more →

In 1883 -The first electric lighting system using overhead wires went into service in Roselle, New Jersey. In 1983 – Apple released the Lisa, the second commercial computer with a graphical user interface (after the Xerox Star). It only cost…Read more →

In 1902 – Nikola Tesla filed a patent application for wireless energy transmission. The patent was granted 12 years later. We’re still waiting for the kinks to get worked out. In 1903 – The first two-way transatlantic communication, and first…Read more →

In 1871 – Andrew S. Hallidie received a patent for an “endless wire rope way” which he would put into practice as the cable car system in San Francisco, California. In 1882 – Thomas Edison received a patent for adding…Read more →

In 1969 – The Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5 spacecraft successfully docked in orbit. Yevgeny Khrunov moved from Soyuz-5 to Soyuz-4 and Alexei Yeliseyev went from 4 to 5, marking the first time spacefarers went up in one craft and…Read more →

In 1759 – The British Museum, in Bloomsbury, London, the world’s oldest public national museum, opened to the public. Entry was free and given to ‘all studious and curious Persons’. In 2001 – Wikipedia, the free Wiki content encyclopedia, went…Read more →

In 1878 – Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated the telephone to Queen Victoria at her Osborne House estate on the Isle of Wight. He reached out and touched her, a faux pas which made him the first commoner in years to…Read more →

In 1910 – The first public radio broadcast took place with a live performance of the opera Cavalleria rusticana sung by Enrico Caruso and others was broadcast from the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. The transmitter had 500…Read more →

In 1908 – Lee de Forest, a French engineer and scientist, broadcast a phonograph record show from the Eiffel Tower for an audience of less than 50 people. The show was also heard over 500 miles from the tower, becoming…Read more →

In 1899 – A US patent was issued for an “Electric Device,” invented by David Misell, which used D size batteries laid end to end in a paper tube with a light bulb and a brass reflector at the end.…Read more →