Geek Facts

In 1989, Robert Tappan Morris became the first person to be indicted under the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Morris was prosecuted for creating and releasing the Morris worm, generally considered to be the first Internet worm. Learn more at http://timelines.com/1989/7/26/first-indictment-under-computer-fraud-and-abuse-act.

In 1984, Cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya became the first woman to walk in space. Her spacewalk lasted 3 hours and 35 minutes.  Of the sixty Soviet/Russian space walkers, she is the only woman. Learn more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svetlana_Savitskaya.

In 1847, Richard March Hoe received a patent for a rotary-type printing press. The rotary printing press placed the type on a revolving cylinder, making it much faster than the flatbed printing press. It was sometimes called the “Hoe lightning press”. Learn more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_March_Hoe.

In 1829, William Austin Burt received a patent for his typographer, an early forerunner of the typewriter. The typographer was a rectangular wooden box 12 inches wide, 12 inches high, and 18 inches long. It mechanically worked by depressing a rotating lever so that an

In 1784, German astronomer and mathematician Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel was born. Bessel was the first to measure stellar parallax, an apparent change in a star’s position as a result of the Earth orbiting the Sun. Learn more at http://science.howstuffworks.com/dictionary/famous-scientists/astronomers/friedrich-wilhelm-bessel-info.htm

In 2011, NASA’s Space Shuttle program ended with the landing of Space Shuttle Atlantis. NASA’s shuttle fleet – Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour – flew a total of 135 missions. Learn more at http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/launch/

In 1968, 
Andy Grove, Gordon Moore, and Robert Noyce found microprocessor manufacturer NM Electronics. The name was taken from Noyce (N) and Morse (M). They quickly changed the name to Intel, formed from the first syllables of “integrated electronics”. Learn more at http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/history2/84/Intel-Corporation.html

In 1850,
 The Harvard Observatory photographed a star for the first time in history. The star was Vega in the constellation Lyra. Lyra is a small constellation, quite easily identified as it appears to consist of an equilateral triangle attached to a parallelogram. Its brightest

In 1951, Dan Bricklin, “the father of the spreadsheet”, was born. Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston created Visicalc, the first spreadsheet program for personal computers. Visicalc was first released for the Apple II in November of 1979. Priced at $100, it sold so well that

In 1975, the Space Race: Apollo–Soyuz Test Project featured the dual launch of an Apollo spacecraft and a Soyuz spacecraft.  It was both the last launch of an Apollo spacecraft and the Saturn family of rockets. The Apollo-Soyuz Test Project was the first joint Soviet-US

In 1914, Dr. Robert H. Goddard patented liquid rocket fuel on this day. Dr. Goddard is considered the father of practical modern rocketry and space flight. His most important experimental breakthrough was in 1926, when he built and tested the first successful liquid-fueled rocket. Learn

In 1897, 
Guglielmo Marconi received a patent on the process of “Transmitting Electrical Signals”. This eventually lead to the development of a wireless telegraph system, for which Marconi received a patent in 1901. Learn more at http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1909/marconi-bio.html