Today in 20th Century Tech History

May 15 in 20th century tech history

In 1958: The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 3.

In 1963: NASA launches Mercury-Atlas 9, aboard which astronaut Gordon Cooper becomes the first American to spend more than a day in space.

In 1987: The Soviet Union launches the Polyus prototype orbital weapons platform, which fails to reach orbit.

May 14 in 20th century tech history

In 1973: Skylab, the United States' first space station, is launched aboard the last Saturn V rocket.

May 13 in 20th century tech history

In 1939: The first commercial FM radio station in the United States, W1XPW, is launched in Bloomfield, Connecticut.

In 1940: The Vought-Sikorsky VS-300, the first helicopter to use the same configuration as modern helicopters, makes its maiden flight.

In 1958: George de Mestral registers Velcro as a trademark in the US.

May 12 in 20th century tech history

In 1941: Konrad Zuse presents the Z3, the world's first working programmable, fully automatic computer, to an audience of fellow scientists in Berlin.

In 1965: The Soviet spacecraft Luna 5 crashes on the Moon.

May 11 in 20th century tech history

In 1928: General Electric begins America�s first regularly scheduled TV broadcasts on station W2XB in Schenectady, New York. The programs were aired from 1:30 to 2:00 p.m. on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays in a 24-line format.

In 1951: Jay Wright Forrester of MIT files the first patent for computer magnetic core memory.

In 1987: Dr. Bruce Reitz performs the first successful heart-lung transplant.

In 1997: IBM's Deep Blue, a chess-playing supercomputer, defeats Garry Kasparov in the last game of the rematch, becoming the first computer to beat a world-champion chess player.

May 10 in 20th century tech history

In 1960: The nuclear submarine USS Triton completes the first underwater circumnavigation of the earth.

May 9 in 20th century tech history

In 1941: The German submarine U-110 is captured by the Royal Navy. On board is the latest Enigma cryptography machine which Allied cryptographers later use to break coded German messages.

In 1962: MIT scientists become the first to bounce a laser beam off of the Moon, as described in this Time magazine article