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• 1861 – The first transcontinental telegraph message was sent to President Abraham Lincoln, from California Justice Stephen J. Field

• 1929 – Known as Black Thursday, the markets crashed after Wall Street investors panicked, signaling the beginning of the Great Depression

• 1931 – The George Washington bridge, which connects New York and New Jersey was dedicated, although it didn’t accept traffic until the following day

• 1982 – Epcot Center was also dedicated, at Walt Disney World in Florida; “May EPCOT Center entertain, inform and inspire, and above all, may it instill a new sense of belief and pride in man’s ability to shape a world that offers hope to people everywhere.” What a fantastic hope for the world…

• 2003 – The Concordes landed in London after its last commercial flight, ending supersonic air travel

Have a great weekend!!

Sept. 19, 1982: Can’t You Take a Joke? :-)

via Wired Top Stories by Tony Long on 9/18/08

1982: At precisely 11:44 a.m., Scott Fahlman posts the following electronic message to a computer-science department bulletin board at Carnegie Mellon University:

19-Sep-82 11:44 Scott E Fahlman :-)
From: Scott E Fahlman

I propose that the following character sequence for joke markers:

:-)

Read it sideways. Actually, it is probably more economical to mark things that are NOT jokes, given current trends. For this, use:

:-(

With that post, Fahlman became the acknowledged originator of the ASCII-based emoticon. From those two simple emoticons (a portmanteau combining the words emotion and icon) have sprung dozens of others that are the joy, or bane, of e-mail, text-message and instant-message correspondence the world over.

(more…)

• 1787 – a constitutional clause regarding patents and copyrights was adopted by the constitutional convention. (About.com)

• 1885 – Sylvanus F. Bowser unveiled his invention of the gas pump in Fort Wayne, TX (Wired)

• 1930 – Charles Creighton and James Hagris made the drive from NYC to LA and back to NYC, in a 1929 Ford Model A – in reverse gear. The trip took 42 days. (On-This-Day)

• 1977 – The launch of the Voyager 1, the most distant man-made object from the Sun. It still transmits scientific data to Earth today. (www.tecsoc.org)

• 1983 – Sports Illustrated becomes the first national, weekly magazine to use four-color process illustrations on every page. (On-This-Day)

Have a great weekend!

• 1787 – Inventor John Fitch unveiled his steamboat on the Delaware River to delegates from the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.

• 1902 – Theodore Roosevelt was the first United States President to ride in an automobile in public.

• 1932 – BBS begins experimental TV broadcasts on a regular basis.

• 1962 – The world’s first nuclear-powered ship, completed its first voyage from Yorktown, VA to Savannah, GA.

• 2008 – The iPhone 3G will be made available in 20 countries today (click here for the full list)

Sources: Wikipedia, LiveScience, Brainy History, TUAW

• 1981 – at 12:01 MTV begins broadcasting, with “Video Killed the Radio Star”.

• 1967 – a team of computer manufacturers and the US Navy collaborate to create the specifications for COBOL (Common Business Oriented Language). This was developed to create easy-to-read computer programs which would run on any computer with only minimal modifications.

• 1958 – The postage stamp rises in cost for the first time in 26 years…to 4 cents.

• 1941 – The Jeep is invented – General Dwight D. Eisenhower declares that America could not have won WWII without it.

• 1927 – the earliest date for a film to be considered for the Academy Awards.

• 1873 – the first successful test of a cable street car was completed.

(Source: www.brainyhistory.com)