July 9

1856: Serbian-American high voltage experimenter Nikola Tesla was born. 1865: Count Amedeo Avogadro, who discovered that at the same T and P all volumes of a perfect gas contained the same number of particles, and defined 6.022 x 10^23 units per mole of a substance, died. 1872: The doughnut cutter was patented by John F. Blondel. 1894: Percy Spencer, inventor of the microwave oven, was born. 1910: Walter Brookins became the first to fly an airplane a mile in the air. 1911: John Wheeler, who coined the term "Black Hole," was born. 1919: Present-day Ford Motor Company incorporated in DE. 1932: King Gillette, inventor of the safety razor, died. 1953: New York Airways began the first commuter passenger service by helicopter. 1956: Dick Clark first hosted "Bandstand." 1962: The "Starfish Prime" high altitude nuclear tests were performed at Johnston Island. 1964: My sister, Tina, was born - Happy Birthday! 1968: Frederick Schollhammer received a patent for his "Portable Beam Generator," otherwise known as a hand-held laser ray gun.  1979: Voyager 2, made its closest approach to Jupiter. 1982: A man broke into Buckingham Palace and spent ten minutes talking to the Queen in her bedroom. 1999: A jury in Los Angeles ordered General Motors to pay $4.9B to six people severely burned when their Chevrolet Malibu exploded in flames in a rear-end collision. 1999: Charles P. "Pete" Conrad, the third human to walk on the moon during Apollo 12, died.