The Nerd's Almanac

September 17, 2011

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Good morning! It's The Nerd's Almanac for Saturday, September 17, 2011.

It was on this date in 1976 that NASA unveiled the Space Shuttle Enterprise. Its original name was to be Constitution, and today is Constitution Day. But there was a letter-writing campaign by Star Trek fans to try and influence the name of this first Space Shuttle; it is unknown how much sway this actually had.

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September 13, 2011

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Good morning! It's The Nerd's Almanac for Tuesday, September 13, 2011.

On this date in 1848, railroad worker Phineas Gage survived a construction accident that drove a three foot iron rod completely through his head. The case shed light on the brain and how its regions function.

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September 12, 2011

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Good morning! It's The Nerd's Almanac for Day, September 12, 2011.

Today is the anniversary of three space launches!

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September 11, 2011

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Good morning! It's The Nerd's Almanac for Sunday, September 11, 2011.

While this is a sadly eventful day in ordinary history, it's a rather quiet day in nerddom.

It is, however, the birthday of actress Roxann Dawson, who played the part of B'Elanna Torres on Star Trek: Voyager.

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September 10, 2011

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Good morning! It's The Nerd's Almanac for Saturday, September 10, 2011.

On this date way back in 2008, the Large Hadron Collider was powered up for the first time at CERN. Yes, the people that invented the Internet also created the "biggest scientific experiment in history"!

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September 9, 2011

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Good morning! It's The Nerd's Almanac for Friday, September 9, 2011.

Today is the anniversary of the first remote connection between man and computer, demonstrated by George Stibitz on this date in 1940. Members of the Mathematical Association of America, meeting at Dartmouth College, remotely transmitted problems to a computer located at Bell Laboratories in New York City, and then received the solution, transmitted back to the meeting hall.

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September 8, 2011

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Good morning! It's The Nerd's Almanac for Thursday, September 8, 2011.

Today is the anniversary of Scotch tape, first introduced in 1930 by 3M. If you were to unroll all of the tape that 3M has sold in the past seventy-some years, it would reach... well, honestly it would be an ungodly sticky mess. Do not attempt.

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September 7, 2011

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Good morning! It's The Nerd's Almanac for Wednesday, September 7, 2011.

It's the anniversary of television, first demonstrated on this date in 1927. Philo Taylor Farnsworth was 14 years old when he devised the principles of the image dissector based on the back-and-forth motion of plowing a field, and demonstrated a working model six years later.

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September 6, 2011

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Good morning! It's The Nerd's Almanac for Tuesday, September 6, 2011.

On this date in 1522, the Victoria, under the command of Juan Sebastián Elcano, arrived in Spain, becoming the first ship to circumnavigate the globe. The Victoria was part of Ferdinand Magellan's expedition, but Magellan himself had been killed four months earlier in the Philippines.

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September 5, 2011

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Good morning! It's The Nerd's Almanac for Monday, September 5, 2011.

On this date in 1977, Voyager 1 was launched on its mission to study our solar system. It passed by Jupiter in 1979 and Saturn in 1980, and is now just wandering the heavens, waiting for some future space travelers to discover it and play its golden record.

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September 4, 2011

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Good morning! It's The Nerd's Almanac for Sunday, September 4, 2011.

On this date in 1888, George Eastman received a patent for his film camera and roll film invention. Not quite sure who that is? Well let's just say it's not much of a coincidence that the name Kodak was trademarked that very same day.

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September 3, 2011

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Good morning! It's The Nerd's Almanac for Saturday, September 3, 2011.

Today is the anniversary of the landing of Viking 2 on the surface of the planet Mars in 1976. The landing occurred at a place called Utopia Planitia, which means "nowhere plain". The Viking 2 Lander searched for life, performed analysis and took pictures until its batteries ran out in 1980.

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September 2, 2011

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Good morning! It's The Nerd's Almanac for Friday, September 2, 2011.

One of history's most significant auroral events took place on this date in 1859, affecting the operation of electric telegraphy. Communication took place with batteries switched off. Amazing!

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September 1, 2011

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Good morning! It's The Nerd's Almanac for Thursday, September 1, 2011.

Today is the anniversary of the 1902 release of Le Voyage dans la lune. This French silent film by Georges Méliès was black and white, ran fourteen minutes, and was the first science fiction film. Generations of sci-fi fans say merci!

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August 31, 2011

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Good morning! It's The Nerd's Almanac for Wednesday, August 31, 2011.

Today is the anniversary of Ferdinand von Zeppelin's patent of his eponymous navigable balloon in 1895. If you're interested in the technical details, let's just say it was held aloft by a Whole Lotta Gas.

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August 30, 2011

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Good morning! It's The Nerd's Almanac for Tuesday, August 30, 2011.

Today marks the anniversary of the first flight of Space Shuttle Discovery, which made its maiden voyage on this date in 1984. Retired earlier this year, Discovery is planned to be on display at the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum.

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August 29, 2011

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Good morning! It's The Nerd's Almanac for Monday, August 29, 2011.

On this date in 1831, Michael Faraday discovered electromagnetic induction, which allows us to have such things as motors and generators and transformers, oh my!

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August 28, 2011

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Good morning! It's The Nerd's Almanac for Sunday, August 28, 2011.

This is the date that William Herschel discovered the moon Enceladus of Saturn in 1789. It was the sixth of Saturn's five dozen or so moons to be discovered and it is also the sixth largest of them. Coincidence? Not really, when you think about it.

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August 27, 2011

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Good morning! It's The Nerd's Almanac for Saturday, August 27, 2011.

It was on this date in 1859 that oil was discovered in Titusville, Pennsylvania -- and not only was an industry born, but our whole modern way of life was enabled.

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August 26, 2011

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Good morning! It's The Nerd's Almanac for Friday, August 26, 2011.

Today is the anniversary of the first news dispatch sent by telegraph, in 1858. I don't know what it said, but it must have been pretty important to be transmitted so extravagantly!

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August 25, 2011

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Good morning! It's The Nerd's Almanac for Thursday, August 25, 2011.

In spite of the lack of resemblance between today's date and the first of April, today is the anniversary of the Great Moon Hoax of 1835. Animals, trees, oceans, beaches -- you would certainly need "an immense telescope of an entirely new principle". Other than that, sounds totally plausible to me!

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August 24, 2011

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Good morning! It's The Nerd's Almanac for Wednesday, August 24, 2011.

Today is the anniversary of one of the world's great operating systems. On this date in 1995, Microsoft released Windows 95. At the time, Linux was still in its infancy. Mac users were still on System 7. Looking back, Windows 95 seems a bit primitive, but it was such an enormous improvement over Windows 3.1, I consider it a huge success!

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August 23, 2011

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Good morning! It's The Nerd's Almanac for Tuesday, August 23, 2011.

This is the anniversary of the patent on the tire chain in 1904. I mention this merely for the irony of a new technology that doesn't get much use anymore -- kind of reminds me of LP records and personal computers.

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August 22, 2011

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Good morning! It's The Nerd's Almanac for Monday, August 22, 2011.

Today is the anniversary of the first experimental television broadcast by the BBC in 1932. It seems to have caught on somewhat.

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August 21, 2011

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Good morning! It's The Nerd's Almanac for Sunday, August 21, 2011.

It was on this date in 1888 that the adding machine was patented by William Burroughs. You've come a long way, baby! I'm pretty sure my Droid 2 has at least two calculators installed on it!

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