In 1830 – D. Hyde of Reading, Pennsylvania patented the fountain pen. In 1884, Lewis Waterman patented what most consider to be the first practical fountain pen. Learn more at http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa100897.htm

In 1980, the Apple III was announced at the National Computer Conference. The Apple III ran twice as fast as the Apple II and had 128K of RAM, twice as much as the Apple II. It was also the first Apple computer to have a

In 1953, Jacqueline Cochrane became the first woman to break the sound barrier. Jacqueline Cochrane had several other aviation “firsts” — the first woman to take off from an aircraft carrier, the first woman to reach Mach 2, the first pilot to make a blind

1993, Intel’s Pentium processor was announced. “Pentium” comes from the Greek root word “pentas” meaning “five.” The Pentium was the Intel 80586 chip. The Pentium chip was estimated to be two times faster than the 486DX2 (66MHz) chip. Learn more at http://www.computermuseum.li/Testpage/Chip-Pentium-1993.htm

In 1718, Italian mathematician Maria Gaetana Agnesi was born. Maria Agnesi is known for the ‘Witch of Agnesi’. It was supposed to be called the ‘Curve of Agnesi’ but something was lost in the translation. Learn more at http://math.about.com/library/blbioagnesi.htm

In 1963, Faith 7, the last Mercury mission, was launched. Astronaut L. Gordon Cooper successfully completed the mission. He orbited Earth 22-1/2 times and was weightless for over 34 hours. Learn more at http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mercury/missions/faith7.html