July 17
Today is
Wrong Way Corrigan Day. 709 BC: The earliest record of a confirmed
total solar
eclipse was written in China. 1850: Astronomers at the Harvard Observatory took the
first photograph of a star -
Vega. 1899: NEC Corporation was organized as the first Japanese joint venture
with foreign capital. 1902:
Willis
Carrier completed drawings for what came to be recognized as the world's first scientific
air conditioning system. 1920: Gordon Gould, who coined the term "laser," was born. 1920:
Nils Bohlin, inventor
of the 3-point shoulder and lap safety belt, was born. 1947:
Sir Watson-Watt, the father of radar, was granted a patent
for his radar concept. 1955:
Disneyland
opened in Anaheim, CA. 1975: An
Apollo spaceship docked with the Soyuz 19 spacecraft in orbit - it
was the first link up between the U.S. and Soviet Union. 1981: The
Humber
Bridge at Kingston-Upon-Hull, England, was opened as the longest single-span bridge
in the world (1.4 km). 1989: The first test flight of
Stealth bomber took
place. 1996: TWA Flight 800
mysteriously crashed off the coast of Long Island. 1997: The
F.W. Woolworth
Company closed after 117 years in business.
| Jan |
Feb | Mar |
Apr | May |
Jun | Jul |
Aug | Sep |
Oct | Nov |
Dec |
Note: These
historical tidbits have been collected from various sources, mostly on the Internet.
As detailed in
this article, there is
a lot of wrong information that is repeated hundreds of times because most websites do
not validate with authoritative sources. On RF Cafe, events with
hyperlinks have been verified. Many years ago, I began
commemorating the birthdays of notable people and events with
special RF Cafe logos. Where
available, I like to use images from postage stamps from the country where the person
or event occurred. Images used in the logos are often from open source websites like
Wikipedia, and are specifically credited with a hyperlink back to the source where possible.
Fair Use laws permit small
samples of copyrighted content.
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