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This Day in Information (Extra): First Aerial Photograph
Today in 1860, James Wallace Black made the first successful aerial photographs in the United States. He photographed Boston from a hot-air balloon at 1,200 feet. One good print resulted, which the photographer entitled “Boston as the Eagle and the … Continue reading
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This Day In Information: The NeXT Big Thing
Today in 1988, Steve Jobs unveiled the NeXT Computer at Symphony Hall in San Francisco. A day or two later, I was among a standing-room only crowd at Boston’s Symphony Hall admiring the all-black, beautifully-designed “workstation” with a brand-new optical … Continue reading
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This Day In Information: Giant Brains
Today in 1996, the US Postal Office introduced a special “Computer Technology” stamp to mark the fiftieth anniversary of ENIAC, the first large-scale, electronic digital computer. The stamp shows an image of a brain partially covered by small blocs that … Continue reading
This Day in Information: Birth of ALA
Today in 1876, during the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, 103 librarians, 90 men and 13 women, responded to a call for a “Convention of Librarians” to be held October 4-6 at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. At the end of … Continue reading
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This Day in Information (Extra): The First Complete English Bible
Today in 1535, the first complete English-language edition of the Bible, translated by Miles Coverdale, was printed in Antwerp. It was printed in England 3 years later. The significance of this event is summarized by Liah Greenfeld in Nationalism: “..the … Continue reading
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This Day in History: Solar-Powered Phone Calls
Today in 1955, the first field trial of a rural telephone system making use of transistors and the Bell Solar Battery was held in Americus, Georgia. Today, 1.5 billion people, one quarter of the world’s population, live without electricity, and … Continue reading
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This Day in Information: “Radio Music Box”
Today in 1915*, David Sarnoff, Chief Inspector for The Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America wrote to his superiors: “I have in mind a plan of development which will make radio a ‘household utility’ in the same sense as the piano or phonograph. … Continue reading
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This Day in Information: The Social Network, 1979
Today in 1979, 5 years before Mark Zuckerberg was born, CompuServe launched one of the first consumer online services, initially marketed as MicroNET through Radio Shack. By the mid-1980s, CompuServe was the largest consumer information service in the world due … Continue reading
This Day In Information: 1st Postmaster General
Today in 1789, Samuel Osgood became the first Postmaster General under the U.S. Constitution. The next year, 1790, the U.S. Postal Service moved 300,000 letters and 500,000 newspapers, according to Richard John’s definitive history of the American postal system. Says … Continue reading
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This day in information: Birth of the disk drive
Today in 1956, IBM announced the 305 RAMAC (Random Access Memory Accounting), the first disk storage product. It came with fifty 24-inch disks for a total capacity of 5 megabytes, weighed 1 ton, and could be leased for $3,200 per … Continue reading
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The Story of Information 