December 16
 1907: The first U.S. radio broadcast
of a singer featured Eugenia
Farrar, as transmitted by Lee De Forest from the Brooklyn Naval Yard. 1912: The first
U.S. postage stamp to depict an airplane was a 20-cent Parcel Post stamp that used a
biplane carrying mail. 1944: The
Battle of
the Bulge began in Belgium, and was the final major German counteroffensive in the
war. 1945:
Giovanni Agnelli, founder of the Fiat (Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino) automobile company, died.
1947: The
transistor was invented by American physicists John Bardeen, Walter H. Brattain,
and William Shockley. 1954: Synthetic diamonds were produced at General Electric Research
Laboratories. 1979: The first rocket vehicle to break the sound barrier on land reached
739.7 mph on a 3-mile test-strip at Rogers Lake, Edwards Air Force Base, CA. 1997: 700
children in Japan were hospitalized after a televised cartoon triggered a condition called
"Nintendo
epilepsy.
| 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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