History of Technology: Inventions That Shaped Modern Life
Radio, automobiles, aviation
The history of technology is largely the history of energy, information, and production. Each major technological transition — the printing press, steam power, electricity, the internal combustion engine, the internet — rewired not just the economy but social structure, politics, culture, and the basic texture of daily life. Many of the most important inventions were not anticipated, not invented by their credited inventors, and not adopted for the reasons their inventors intended.
History: January 3 (#2)
January 3, 2009 The first block of the blockchain of the decentralized payment system Bitcoin, called the Genesis block, is established by the creator of the system, Satoshi Nakamoto.
Read commentary →History: January 5 (#1)
January 5, 1914 The Ford Motor Company announces an eight-hour workday and minimum daily wage of $5 in salary plus bonuses.
Read commentary →History: January 5 (#2)
January 5, 1933 Construction of the Golden Gate Bridge begins in San Francisco Bay.
Read commentary →History: January 6 (#1)
January 6, 1838 Alfred Vail and colleagues demonstrate a telegraph system using dots and dashes (this is the forerunner of Morse code).
Read commentary →History: January 6 (#2)
January 6, 1947 Pan American Airlines becomes the first commercial airline to offer a round-the-world ticket.
Read commentary →History: January 9 (#2)
January 9, 1839 The French Academy of Sciences announces the Daguerreotype photography process.
Read commentary →History: January 10 (#1)
January 10, 1812 The first steamboat on the Ohio River or the Mississippi River arrives in New Orleans, 82 days after departing from Pittsburgh.
Read commentary →History: January 11 (#4)
January 11, 1986 The Gateway Bridge, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia is officially opened.
Read commentary →History: January 15 (#2)
January 15, 1936 The first building to be completely covered in glass, built for the Owens-Illinois Glass Company, is completed in Toledo, Ohio.
Read commentary →History: January 15 (#3)
January 15, 1910 Construction ends on the Buffalo Bill Dam in Wyoming, United States, which was the highest dam in the world at the time, at 99 m (325 ft).
Read commentary →History: January 16 (#1)
January 16, 1913 Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan writes his first letter to G. H. Hardy at Cambridge, stating without proof various formulae involving integrals, infinite series, and continued fractions, beginning a long correspondence between the two as well as widespread recognition of Ramanujan's results.
Read commentary →History: January 19 (#1)
January 19, 1953 Almost 72 percent of all television sets in the United States are tuned into I Love Lucy to watch Lucy give birth.
Read commentary →History: January 21 (#1)
January 21, 1963 The Chicago North Shore and Milwaukee Railroad ends operation.
Read commentary →History: January 22 (#3)
January 22, 1970 The Boeing 747, the world's first "jumbo jet", enters commercial service for launch customer Pan American Airways with its maiden voyage from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport to London Heathrow Airport.
Read commentary →History: January 25 (#3)
January 25, 1960 The National Association of Broadcasters in the United States reacts to the "payola" scandal by threatening fines for any disc jockeys who accept money for playing particular records.
Read commentary →History: January 27 (#3)
January 27, 1880 Thomas Edison receives a patent for his incandescent lamp.
Read commentary →History: January 30 (#1)
January 30, 1826 The Menai Suspension Bridge, considered the world's first modern suspension bridge, connecting the Isle of Anglesey to the northwest coast of Wales, is opened.
Read commentary →History: February 1 (#1)
February 1, 1896 La bohème premieres in Turin at the Teatro Regio (Turin), conducted by the young Arturo Toscanini.
Read commentary →History: February 1 (#2)
February 1, 1884 The first volume (A to Ant) of the Oxford English Dictionary is published.
Read commentary →History: February 2 (#1)
February 2, 1909 The Paris Film Congress opens, an attempt by European producers to form an equivalent to the MPPC cartel in the United States.
Read commentary →History: February 2 (#4)
February 2, 2000 First digital cinema projection in Europe (Paris) realized by Philippe Binant with the DLP CINEMA technology developed by Texas Instruments.
Read commentary →History: February 3 (#2)
February 3, 1971 New York Police Officer Frank Serpico is shot during a drug bust in Brooklyn and survives to later testify against police corruption.
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February 3, 1918 The Twin Peaks Tunnel in San Francisco, California begins service as the longest streetcar tunnel in the world at 11,920 feet (3,630 meters) long.
Read commentary →History: February 4 (#1)
February 4, 1977 A Chicago Transit Authority elevated train rear-ends another and derails, killing 11 and injuring 180, the worst accident in the agency's history.
Read commentary →History: February 6 (#2)
February 6, 1959 Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments files the first patent for an integrated circuit.
Read commentary →History: February 9 (#2)
February 9, 1978 The Budd Company unveils its first SPV-2000 self-propelled railcar in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Read commentary →History: February 11 (#3)
February 11, 1937 The Flint sit-down strike ends when General Motors recognizes the United Auto Workers trade union.
Read commentary →History: February 13 (#1)
February 13, 1914 Copyright: In New York City the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers is established to protect the copyrighted musical compositions of its members.
Read commentary →History: February 13 (#3)
February 13, 1322 The central tower of Ely Cathedral falls on the night of 12th–13th.
Read commentary →History: February 14 (#1)
February 14, 1924 The Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company changes its name to International Business Machines Corporation (IBM).
Read commentary →History: February 15 (#2)
February 15, 1972 Sound recordings are granted U.S. federal copyright protection for the first time.
Read commentary →History: February 20 (#2)
February 20, 1956 The United States Merchant Marine Academy becomes a permanent Service Academy.
Read commentary →History: February 21 (#1)
February 21, 1947 In New York City, Edwin Land demonstrates the first "instant camera", the Polaroid Land Camera, to a meeting of the Optical Society of America.
Read commentary →History: February 21 (#2)
February 21, 1828 Initial issue of the Cherokee Phoenix is the first periodical to use the Cherokee syllabary invented by Sequoyah.
Read commentary →History: February 26 (#1)
February 26, 1909 Kinemacolor, the first successful color motion picture process, is first shown to the general public at the Palace Theatre in London.
Read commentary →History: March 2 (#2)
March 2, 1968 Baggeridge Colliery closes, marking the end of over 300 years of coal mining in the Black Country.
Read commentary →History: March 3 (#2)
March 3, 724 Empress Genshō abdicates the throne in favor of her nephew Shōmu who becomes emperor of Japan.
Read commentary →History: March 4 (#3)
March 4, 852 Croatian Knez Trpimir I issues a statute, a document with the first known written mention of the Croats name in Croatian sources.
Read commentary →History: March 5 (#1)
March 5, 1981 The ZX81, a pioneering British home computer, is launched by Sinclair Research and would go on to sell over 11⁄2 million units around the world.
Read commentary →History: March 5 (#2)
March 5, 1850 The Britannia Bridge across the Menai Strait between the island of Anglesey and the mainland of Wales is opened.
Read commentary →History: March 8 (#1)
March 8, 1979 Philips demonstrates the compact disc publicly for the first time.
Read commentary →History: March 11 (#2)
March 11, 1702 The Daily Courant, England's first national daily newspaper, is published for the first time.
Read commentary →History: March 15 (#1)
March 15, 1927 The first Women's Boat Race between the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge takes place on The Isis in Oxford.
Read commentary →History: March 15 (#2)
March 15, 351 Constantius Gallus is elevated as Caesar and then sent to Antioch to govern the Roman East.
Read commentary →History: March 17 (#2)
March 17, 1979 The Penmanshiel Tunnel collapses during engineering works, killing two workers.
Read commentary →History: March 23 (#1)
March 23, 1857 Elisha Otis's first elevator is installed at 488 Broadway New York City.
Read commentary →History: March 28 (#1)
March 28, 1910 Henri Fabre becomes the first person to fly a seaplane, the Fabre Hydravion, after taking off from water runway Étang le Barre, near Marseille.
Read commentary →History: March 29 (#1)
March 29, 1999 The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above the 10,000 mark (10,006.78) for the first time, during the height of the dot-com bubble.
Read commentary →History: April 5 (#1)
April 5, 1998 In Japan, the Akashi Kaikyō Bridge opens to traffic, becoming the longest bridge span in the world.
Read commentary →History: April 9 (#1)
April 9, 1990 An Embraer EMB 120 Brasilia collides in mid-air with a Cessna 172 over Gadsden, Alabama, killing both of the Cessna's occupants.
Read commentary →History: April 16 (#1)
April 16, 1908 Natural Bridges National Monument is established in Utah.
Read commentary →History: April 22 (#1)
April 22, 1970 Chicano residents in San Diego, California occupy a site under the Coronado Bridge, leading to the creation of Chicano Park.
Read commentary →History: April 22 (#2)
April 22, 1977 Optical fiber is first used to carry live telephone traffic.
Read commentary →History: May 3 (#1)
May 3, 1957 Walter O'Malley, the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, agrees to move the team from Brooklyn to Los Angeles.
Read commentary →History: May 4 (#1)
May 4, 1859 The Cornwall Railway opens across the Royal Albert Bridge linking Devon and Cornwall in England.
Read commentary →History: May 5 (#1)
May 5, 1891 The Music Hall in New York City (later known as Carnegie Hall) has its grand opening and first public performance, with Tchaikovsky as the guest conductor.
Read commentary →History: May 6 (#1)
May 6, 1949 EDSAC, the first practical electronic digital stored-program computer, runs its first operation.
Read commentary →History: May 7 (#1)
May 7, 1952 The concept of the integrated circuit, the basis for all modern computers, is first published by Geoffrey Dummer.
Read commentary →History: May 7 (#3)
May 7, 1846 The Cambridge Chronicle, America's oldest surviving weekly newspaper, is published for the first time in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Read commentary →History: May 8 (#1)
May 8, 1886 Pharmacist John Pemberton first sells a carbonated beverage named "Coca-Cola" as a patent medicine.
Read commentary →History: May 18 (#1)
May 18, 1926 Evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson disappears in Venice, California.
Read commentary →History: May 21 (#1)
May 21, 1932 Bad weather forces Amelia Earhart to land in a pasture in Derry, Northern Ireland, and she thereby becomes the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.
Read commentary →History: May 22 (#4)
May 22, 2012 Tokyo Skytree opens to the public. It is the tallest tower in the world (634 m), and the second tallest man-made structure on Earth after Burj Khalifa (829.8 m).
Read commentary →History: May 23 (#1)
May 23, 1829 Accordion patent granted to Cyrill Demian in Vienna, Austrian Empire.
Read commentary →History: May 23 (#3)
May 23, 2013 A freeway bridge carrying Interstate 5 over the Skagit River collapses in Mount Vernon, Washington.
Read commentary →History: May 24 (#5)
May 24, 1956 The first Eurovision Song Contest is held in Lugano, Switzerland.
Read commentary →History: May 27 (#1)
May 27, 1937 In California, the Golden Gate Bridge opens to pedestrian traffic, creating a vital link between San Francisco and Marin County, California.
Read commentary →History: May 27 (#3)
May 27, 1927 The Ford Motor Company ceases manufacture of the Ford Model T and begins to retool plants to make the Ford Model A.
Read commentary →History: June 11 (#1)
June 11, 1968 Lloyd J. Old identified the first cell surface antigens that could differentiate among different cell types.
Read commentary →History: June 14 (#1)
June 14, 1822 Charles Babbage proposes a difference engine in a paper to the Royal Astronomical Society.
Read commentary →History: June 16 (#1)
June 16, 1911 IBM founded as the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company in Endicott, New York.
Read commentary →History: June 19 (#1)
June 19, 1978 Garfield's first comic strip, originally published locally as Jon in 1976, goes into nationwide syndication.
Read commentary →History: June 19 (#3)
June 19, 2005 Following a series of Michelin tire failures during the United States Grand Prix weekend at Indianapolis, and without an agreement being reached, 14 cars from seven teams in Michelin tires withdrew after completing the formation lap, leaving only six cars from three teams on Bridgestone tires to race.
Read commentary →History: June 21 (#1)
June 21, 1970 Penn Central declares Section 77 bankruptcy in what was the largest U.S. corporate bankruptcy to date.
Read commentary →History: June 24 (#1)
June 24, 1981 The Humber Bridge opens to traffic, connecting Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. It remained the world's longest bridge span for 17 years.
Read commentary →History: July 1 (#1)
July 1, 1881 The world's first international telephone call is made between St. Stephen, New Brunswick, Canada, and Calais, Maine, United States.
Read commentary →History: July 1 (#2)
July 1, 1958 The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation links television broadcasting across Canada via microwave.
Read commentary →History: July 3 (#2)
July 3, 1886 The New-York Tribune becomes the first newspaper to use a linotype machine, eliminating typesetting by hand.
Read commentary →History: July 5 (#1)
July 5, 1852 Frederick Douglass delivers his "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" speech in Rochester, New York.
Read commentary →History: July 5 (#2)
July 5, 1954 The BBC broadcasts its first daily television news bulletin.
Read commentary →History: July 18 (#3)
July 18, 1968 Intel is founded in Mountain View, California.
Read commentary →History: July 19 (#1)
July 19, 1843 Brunel's steamship the SS Great Britain is launched, becoming the first ocean-going craft with an iron hull and screw propeller, becoming the largest vessel afloat in the world.
Read commentary →History: July 19 (#2)
July 19, 1983 The first three-dimensional reconstruction of a human head in a CT is published.
Read commentary →History: July 20 (#2)
July 20, 1903 The Ford Motor Company ships its first automobile.
Read commentary →History: July 21 (#1)
July 21, 1925 Malcolm Campbell becomes the first man to exceed 150 mph (241 km/h) on land. At Pendine Sands in Wales, he drives Sunbeam 350HP built by Sunbeam at a two-way average speed of 150.33 mph (242 km/h).
Read commentary →History: July 25 (#1)
July 25, 1965 Bob Dylan goes electric at the Newport Folk Festival, signaling a major change in folk and rock music.
Read commentary →History: July 25 (#3)
July 25, 1837 The first commercial use of an electrical telegraph is successfully demonstrated in London by William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone.
Read commentary →History: July 26 (#1)
July 26, 1989 A federal grand jury indicts Cornell University student Robert T. Morris, Jr. for releasing the Morris worm, thus becoming the first person to be prosecuted under the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
Read commentary →History: July 27 (#1)
July 27, 1866 The first permanent transatlantic telegraph cable is successfully completed, stretching from Valentia Island, Ireland, to Heart's Content, Newfoundland.
Read commentary →History: July 29 (#1)
July 29, 1871 The Connecticut Valley Railroad opens between Old Saybrook, Connecticut and Hartford, Connecticut in the United States.
Read commentary →History: August 1 (#4)
August 1, 2007 The I-35W Mississippi River bridge spanning the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, Minnesota, collapses during the evening rush hour, killing 13 people and injuring 145.
Read commentary →History: August 2 (#2)
August 2, 1870 Tower Subway, the world's first underground tube railway, opens in London, England, United Kingdom.
Read commentary →History: August 2 (#3)
August 2, 1982 The Helsinki Metro, the first rapid transit system of Finland, is opened to the general public.
Read commentary →History: August 3 (#2)
August 3, 1977 Tandy Corporation announces the TRS-80, one of the world's first mass-produced personal computers.
Read commentary →History: August 5 (#1)
August 5, 1888 Bertha Benz drives from Mannheim to Pforzheim and back in the first long distance automobile trip, commemorated as the Bertha Benz Memorial Route since 2008.
Read commentary →History: August 6 (#1)
August 6, 1956 After going bankrupt in 1955, the American broadcaster DuMont Television Network makes its final broadcast, a boxing match from St. Nicholas Arena in New York in the Boxing from St. Nicholas Arena series.
Read commentary →History: August 8 (#2)
August 8, 1963 Great Train Robbery: In England, a gang of 15 train robbers steal £2.6 million in bank notes.
Read commentary →History: August 8 (#4)
August 8, 1876 Thomas Edison receives a patent for his mimeograph.
Read commentary →History: August 8 (#5)
August 8, 2008 A EuroCity express train en route from Kraków, Poland to Prague, Czech Republic strikes a part of a motorway bridge that had fallen onto the railroad track near Studénka railway station in the Czech Republic and derails, killing eight people and injuring 64 others.
Read commentary →History: August 14 (#3)
August 14, 1901 The first claimed powered flight, by Gustave Whitehead in his Number 21.
Read commentary →History: August 16 (#3)
August 16, 1550 Rabbi Moses Isserles issues his ruling in the Bragadin-Giustiniani dispute, one of the earliest instances of a copyright suit over any book.
Read commentary →History: August 16 (#4)
August 16, 2008 The Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago is topped off at 1,389 feet (423 m), at the time becoming the world's highest residence above ground-level.
Read commentary →History: August 17 (#3)
August 17, 1807 Robert Fulton's North River Steamboat leaves New York City for Albany, New York, on the Hudson River, inaugurating the first commercial steamboat service in the world.
Read commentary →History: August 18 (#3)
August 18, 1868 French astronomer Pierre Janssen discovers helium.
Read commentary →History: August 20 (#1)
August 20, 1920 The first commercial radio station, 8MK (now WWJ), begins operations in Detroit.
Read commentary →History: August 20 (#2)
August 20, 1926 Japan's public broadcasting company, Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai (NHK) is established.
Read commentary →History: August 23 (#2)
August 23, 1873 The Albert Bridge in Chelsea, London opens.
Read commentary →History: August 28 (#1)
August 28, 1859 The Carrington event is the strongest geomagnetic storm on record to strike the Earth. Electrical telegraph service is widely disrupted.
Read commentary →History: August 28 (#2)
August 28, 1830 The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's new Tom Thumb steam locomotive races a horse-drawn car, presaging steam's role in U.S. railroads.
Read commentary →History: August 30 (#1)
August 30, 1936 The RMS Queen Mary wins the Blue Riband by setting the fastest transatlantic crossing.
Read commentary →History: September 3 (#1)
September 3, 1935 Sir Malcolm Campbell reaches a speed of 304.331 miles per hour on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, becoming the first person to drive an automobile over 300 mph.
Read commentary →History: September 4 (#4)
September 4, 1964 Scotland's Forth Road Bridge near Edinburgh officially opens.
Read commentary →History: September 4 (#5)
September 4, 2002 The Oakland Athletics win their 20th consecutive game, an American League record, until the Cleveland Indians surpassed it in 2017.
Read commentary →History: September 7 (#2)
September 7, 2021 Bitcoin becomes legal tender in El Salvador.
Read commentary →History: September 8 (#1)
September 8, 1952 The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation makes its first televised broadcast on the second escape of the Boyd Gang.
Read commentary →History: September 9 (#2)
September 9, 1839 John Herschel takes the first glass plate photograph.
Read commentary →History: September 11 (#2)
September 11, 2008 A major Channel Tunnel fire breaks out on a freight train, resulting in the closure of part of the tunnel for six months.
Read commentary →History: September 12 (#3)
September 12, 1910 Premiere performance of Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 8 in Munich (with a chorus of 852 singers and an orchestra of 171 players. Mahler's rehearsal assistant conductor was Bruno Walter).
Read commentary →History: September 12 (#5)
September 12, 1993 NASA launches Space Shuttle Discovery on STS-51.
Read commentary →History: September 13 (#2)
September 13, 1898 Hannibal Goodwin patents celluloid photographic film.
Read commentary →History: September 14 (#1)
September 14, 1998 Telecommunications companies MCI Communications and WorldCom complete their $37 billion merger to form MCI WorldCom.
Read commentary →History: September 14 (#2)
September 14, 1985 Penang Bridge, the longest bridge in Malaysia, connecting the island of Penang to the mainland, opens to traffic.
Read commentary →History: September 17 (#1)
September 17, 1935 The Niagara Gorge Railroad ceases operations after a rockslide.
Read commentary →History: September 18 (#3)
September 18, 1932 The body of actress Peg Entwistle is discovered by police, two days after her suicide by jumping off of the Hollywoodland sign.
Read commentary →History: September 19 (#1)
September 19, 1982 Scott Fahlman posts the first documented emoticons :-) and :-( on the Carnegie Mellon University bulletin board system.
Read commentary →History: September 21 (#1)
September 21, 1942 The Holocaust in Ukraine: In Dunaivtsi, Ukraine, Nazis murder 2,588 Jews.
Read commentary →History: September 27 (#1)
September 27, 1825 The world's first public railway to use steam locomotives, the Stockton and Darlington Railway, is ceremonially opened with the engine Locomotion pulling wagons with coal and passengers from Shildon to Darlington to Stockton.
Read commentary →History: September 28 (#1)
September 28, 1975 The Spaghetti House siege, in which nine people are taken hostage, takes place in London.
Read commentary →History: September 30 (#2)
September 30, 1882 Thomas Edison's first commercial hydroelectric power plant, the Vulcan Street Plant, begins operation.
Read commentary →History: October 5 (#1)
October 5, 1970 The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is founded in the United States.[citation needed]
Read commentary →History: October 7 (#1)
October 7, 1913 Ford Motor Company introduces the first moving vehicle assembly line.
Read commentary →History: October 14 (#2)
October 14, 1888 Louis Le Prince films the first motion picture, Roundhay Garden Scene.
Read commentary →History: October 15 (#1)
October 15, 1970 During the construction of Australia's West Gate Bridge, a span of the bridge falls and kills 35 workers. The incident is the country's worst industrial accident to this day.
Read commentary →History: October 17 (#1)
October 17, 1907 Marconi begins the first commercial transatlantic wireless service.
Read commentary →History: October 20 (#2)
October 20, 2002 Top Gear, the revived popular British TV motoring magazine, premieres on BBC.
Read commentary →History: October 21 (#1)
October 21, 1879 Thomas Edison applies for a patent for his design for an incandescent light bulb.
Read commentary →History: October 24 (#2)
October 24, 2018 The world's longest sea crossing, the Hong Kong–Zhuhai–Macau Bridge, opens for public traffic.
Read commentary →History: October 26 (#1)
October 26, 1958 Pan American Airways makes the first commercial flight of the Boeing 707 from New York City to Paris.
Read commentary →History: November 1 (#1)
November 1, 1987 British Rail Class 43 (HST) hits the record speed of 238 km/h for rail vehicles with on-board fuel to generate electricity for traction motors.
Read commentary →History: November 1 (#2)
November 1, 1963 The Arecibo Observatory in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, with the largest radio telescope ever constructed, officially opens.
Read commentary →History: November 2 (#1)
November 2, 1936 The BBC Television Service, the world's first regular, "high-definition" (then defined as at least 200 lines) service begins. Renamed BBC1 in 1964, the channel still runs to this day.
Read commentary →History: November 3 (#1)
November 3, 1911 Chevrolet officially enters the automobile market in competition with the Ford Model T.
Read commentary →History: November 4 (#1)
November 4, 1890 City and South London Railway: London's first deep-level tube railway opens between King William Street and Stockwell.
Read commentary →History: November 8 (#1)
November 8, 1291 The Republic of Venice enacts a law confining most of Venice's glassmaking industry to the "island of Murano".
Read commentary →History: November 10 (#1)
November 10, 1997 WorldCom and MCI Communications announce a $37 billion merger (the largest merger in US history at the time).
Read commentary →History: November 10 (#2)
November 10, 1969 National Educational Television (the predecessor to the Public Broadcasting Service) in the United States debuts Sesame Street.
Read commentary →History: November 12 (#2)
November 12, 1936 In California, the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge opens to traffic.
Read commentary →History: November 12 (#3)
November 12, 1990 Tim Berners-Lee publishes a formal proposal for the World Wide Web.
Read commentary →History: November 14 (#1)
November 14, 1938 The Lions Gate Bridge, connecting Vancouver to the North Shore region, opens to traffic.
Read commentary →History: November 14 (#3)
November 14, 1922 The British Broadcasting Company begins radio service in the United Kingdom.
Read commentary →History: November 18 (#1)
November 18, 1996 A fire occurs on a train traveling through the Channel Tunnel from France to England causing several injuries and damaging approximately 500 metres (1,600 ft) of tunnel.
Read commentary →History: November 19 (#2)
November 19, 1967 The establishment of TVB, the first wireless commercial television station in Hong Kong.
Read commentary →History: November 20 (#2)
November 20, 1695 Zumbi, the last of the leaders of Quilombo dos Palmares in early Brazil, is executed by the forces of Portuguese bandeirante Domingos Jorge Velho.
Read commentary →History: November 21 (#3)
November 21, 1969 The first permanent ARPANET link is established between UCLA and SRI.
Read commentary →History: November 22 (#2)
November 22, 1869 In Dumbarton, Scotland, the clipper Cutty Sark is launched.
Read commentary →History: November 23 (#1)
November 23, 534 BCE Thespis of Icaria becomes the first recorded actor to portray a character on stage.
Read commentary →History: November 23 (#3)
November 23, 2001 The Budapest Convention on Cybercrime is signed in Budapest, Hungary.
Read commentary →History: November 27 (#1)
November 27, 2001 A hydrogen atmosphere is discovered on the extrasolar planet Osiris by the Hubble Space Telescope, the first atmosphere detected on an extrasolar planet.
Read commentary →History: November 29 (#1)
November 29, 1972 Atari releases Pong, the first commercially successful video game.
Read commentary →History: December 2 (#1)
December 2, 1927 Following 19 years of Ford Model T production, the Ford Motor Company unveils the Ford Model A as its new automobile.
Read commentary →History: December 3 (#1)
December 3, 1992 A test engineer for Sema Group uses a personal computer to send the world's first text message via the Vodafone network to the phone of a colleague.
Read commentary →History: December 3 (#3)
December 3, 1910 Modern neon lighting is first demonstrated by Georges Claude at the Paris Motor Show.
Read commentary →History: December 6 (#1)
December 6, 1933 In United States v. One Book Called Ulysses Judge John M. Woolsey rules that James Joyce's novel Ulysses is not obscene despite coarse language and sexual content, a leading decision affirming free expression.
Read commentary →History: December 15 (#1)
December 15, 1893 Symphony No. 9 ("From the New World" a.k.a. the "New World Symphony") by Antonín Dvořák premieres in a public afternoon rehearsal at Carnegie Hall in New York City, followed by a concert premiere on the evening of December 16.
Read commentary →History: December 20 (#1)
December 20, 1984 The Summit Tunnel fire, one of the largest transportation tunnel fires in history, burns after a freight train carrying over one million liters of gasoline derails near the town of Todmorden, England, in the Pennines.
Read commentary →History: December 31 (#1)
December 31, 1879 Thomas Edison demonstrates incandescent lighting to the public for the first time, in Menlo Park, New Jersey.
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Start Free Daily EmailFrequently Asked Questions
What was the most important invention in history?
Historians frequently debate this, but several inventions repeatedly top the list: the printing press (democratized knowledge, enabled Reformation and Scientific Revolution), steam engine (powered industrialization), electricity (modern civilization), the internet (connected the world's information). The answer also depends on timeframe — the plow, the wheel, and the writing system each had transformative effects equivalent to any modern invention.