In 1975, the name “Micro-soft” was first used in a letter from Bill Gates to Paul Allen. Microsoft Inc. incorporated in the state of Washington in 1981 with Bill Gates as President and the Chairman of the Board and Paul Allen as Executive VP. Learn […]

In 1948
, the first instant camera, Polaroid Land Camera, went on sale at a Boston department store for $89.75. The camera, invented by Dr. Edwin Land, produced a sepia-colored photograph in approximately one minute. Land’s one-step process for developing and printing photographs revolutionized photography. Learn

In 1885, the earliest photograph of a meteor shower, Andromedids, was made. Andromedids had incredible displays of several thousand meteors per hour on November 27th in 1872 and 1885. Currently, there are only displays of less than three meteors per hour around November 14th. Learn

In 1832, Dr. Mary Edwards Walker
, the first female surgeon in the U.S. Army, was born. Dr. Walker was the first woman ever awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. Later revoked in 1917 over some confusion about rightful recipients of the award, it was later

In 1905
, the first U.S. advertisement for a radio receiver is published in the journal, Scientific American. The ad was for a telegraph transmitter, priced at $8.50, from The Electro Importing Company, which imported specialized electronic equipment from Europe and helped to supply many of

In 1639, the first known observations and recording of a transit of Venus were made. The observations were made by the English astronomers Jeremiah Horrocks and William Crabtree. Horrocks was able to make three measurements and calculate for Venus its transit path, angular size, and

In 1992, the first smartphone, IBM Simon, was introduced at COMDEX in Las Vegas, Nevada. The IBM Simon Personal Communicator sported many of the features considered standard for smartphones today – a touchscreen (albeit monochrome), icons, email, calendar, predictive typing and even a game, Scramble.