Each day last year, I posted a Geek Fact for that day. A Geek Fact is something geeky that happened on that day in history. I have to say that it was a pretty interesting exercise. I learned many things that I ordinarily wouldn’t have. For the 366 days of 2012, 464 Geek Facts were posted. On average, that’s roughly one each day with an extra posted each 4th day.
With July 14th being the geekiest day, it should come as no surprise that week of July 8th through 14th was the geekiest week with fifteen Geek Facts. In addition to the Geek Facts for July 14th, other geeky things that happened that week are:
- July 8, 1957 – Control Data Corporation (CDC), a firm which pioneered supercomputers with Seymour Cray, was incorporated.
- July 9, 1802 – Thomas Davenport, the inventor of the first commercial electric motor, was born.
- July 10, 1989 – Intel publicly demonstrated the first EISA 82350 chip set.
- July 11, 1979 – Skylab entered the atmosphere over Australia and disintegrated. I remember this well.
- July 11, 2008 – Apple’s iPhone 3G went on sale. I remember this, too. The iPhone 3G was my first iPhone but I got it a good while after it initially went on sale.
- July 12, 1982 – Hewlett-Packard (HP) introduced the HP-86 microcomputer.
- July 13, 1897 – Guglielmo Marconi received a patent on the process of “Transmitting Electrical Signals.” (I don’t remember this.)
Many of these inventions — electricity, motors, even computers — seem so mundane now. It’s nice to be reminded that, in the history of the world, these inventions could be considered to be relatively brand new.
The next topic in the series will be the Geekiest Month. (It’s not what you think it is.)
To read earlier installments in the Geek Facts Retrospective series:
Part 1 – Geek Facts Retrospective – My Favorite Geek Facts
Part 2 – Geek Facts Retrospective – The Geekiest Topic
Part 3 – Geek Facts Retrospective – The Geekiest Day
