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Monthly Archives: May 2013
National Gallery Opens
Today in 1824, The National Gallery opened to the public. It houses the UK’s national collection of Western European painting from the 13th to the 19th centuries. A complete list of the 2300 paintings is available online.
Posted in Museums, This day in information
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The Best and Worst of Moving Pictures
One hundred and twenty years ago today (May 9, 1893), Thomas Edison presented the Kinetoscope, the first film-viewing device, at the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences. The first film publicly shown on the system was Blacksmith Scene, the earliest known example of actors … Continue reading
Posted in Film, Social Impact, Television, This day in information
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The Annotated Newspapers of Harbottle Dorr, Jr.
The Massachusetts Historical Society presents the complete four volume set of Revolutionary-era Boston newspapers and pamphlets collected, annotated, and indexed by Harbottle Dorr, Jr., a shopkeeper in Boston.
Posted in Digitization, Newspapers
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A Measurement Milestone
Today in 1790, the French National Assembly passed two decrees: One asked the French Academy of Sciences to determine “the scale of division most suitable for weights and measures and for coins;” the other instructed the French Academy to work with the … Continue reading
Posted in Measurement
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What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains (Animation)
See also my interview with Nicholas Carr about his book The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains
Posted in Internet, Social Impact, World Wide Web
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The Digital Revolution (Infographic)
Posted in Big Data, Data growth, Digitization, Infographics
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Launching a Japanese Giant
Today in 1946, more than twenty members of the Tokyo Telecommunications Research Institute, founded by Masaru Ibuka in the previous year, attended the inauguration ceremony which officially established the Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation. Ibuka’s father-in-law, Tamon Maeda was appointed president of the … Continue reading
Posted in consumer electronics history
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The Day Software Started to Eat the World
Today in 1949, the Electronic Delayed Storage Automatic Computer (EDSAC), the first practical stored-program computer, ran its first program and performed its first calculation. “… a thin ribbon of paper containing the program [to print a table of the squares of the … Continue reading
Posted in Computer history, Software
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World Press Freedom Day
Twenty years ago today, May 3rd was proclaimed by the UN General Assembly as World Press Freedom Day, “a date which celebrates the fundamental principles of press freedom; to evaluate press freedom around the world, to defend the media from attacks on their … Continue reading
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