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Category Archives: This day in information
Facts and Good Government
Today in 1790, the first enumeration of the 1790 U.S. Census began. Congress assigned responsibility for the 1790 census to the marshals of the U.S. judicial districts under an act that, with minor modifications and extensions, governed census-taking through 1840.
Posted in Censuses, This day in information
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The Penguin Takes Off
Today in 1935, the first ten Penguin Books, paperback reprints of titles previously published as hardbacks, are issued by publisher Allen Lane. Each title costs only sixpence each, the price of a pack of cigarettes, and all the titles feature the Penguin … Continue reading
Posted in Books, This day in information
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The Eighth Wonder of the World Completed
Today in 1866, the Atlantic Cable was successfully completed. The first working cable, completed in 1858, failed within a few weeks. Before it did, however, it prompted the biggest parade New York had ever seen and accolades that described the … Continue reading
Posted in Telegraph, This day in information
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The Birth of the Integrated Circuit
Today in 1958, Jack Kilby sketched a rough design of the first integrated circuit in his notebook. By the early 1960s, some computers had more than 200,000 individual electronic components–transistors, diodes, resistors, and capacitors–and connecting all of the components was … Continue reading
Typographer Invented
Today in 1829, William Austin Burt, a surveyor from Mount Vernon, Michigan, received a patent for the typographer, the earliest forerunner of the typewriter. Fifty years ago this month (July 31), IBM introduced the IBM Selectric, replacing typebars and the moving carriage with … Continue reading
Posted in IBM, Social Impact, This day in information
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A Robot in Every Home?
Today in 1984, a factory robot in Jackson, Michigan, crushed a 34 year-old worker in the first ever robot-related death in the United States. The robot thus violated Issac Asimov’s First Law of Robotics, “A robot may not injure a human … Continue reading
The Break-Up of the Hollywood Monopoly
“Every spring scores of salesmen roar out of 31 U. S. cities to sell some 17,000 theatre owners a full year’s supply of films (100 to 300 per theatre), sight unseen. They do not sell the films by name, since … Continue reading
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Star Photography
Today in 1850, the first daguerreotype of a star (Vega) was taken. Between 1847 and 1852 William Cranch Bond and pioneer photographer John Adams Whipple used the Great Refractor telescope to produce images of the moon that are remarkable in their clarity of detail and aesthetic … Continue reading
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America’s First Television Theatre
Today in 1938, musical performances in an upstairs area at 568 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, are screened on a television display in the auditorium below, which seats 200 patrons paying 25 cents each. The studio and auditorium are linked by cable. … Continue reading
Posted in Television, This day in information
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First Mention of Computer Programs?
Today in 1836, Charles Babbage wrote in his notebook: “This day I had for the first time a general but very indistinct conception of the possibility of making an engine work out algebraic developments. I mean without any reference to … Continue reading
Posted in Computer history, This day in information
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The Story of Information 