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Today in Tech History: July 31, 2008 Video

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Today in Tech History: July 31, 2008
Created: 07/29/2008
Video description: The first U.S. patent, pictures of the moon, and the face on Mars.

Today in Tech History: July 31, 2008 Video Transcript

Hi, I'm Molly Wood. It's July 31, 2008, and here's what happened today in technology history. On this date in 1790, inventor Samuel Hopkins was granted the first U.S. patent. He patented his process for making potash. Today in 1964, the Ranger 7 spacecraft sent back the first close-up photographs of the moon. They were 1,000 times clearer than anything seen from earth telescopes. Also on this date in 1976, NASA released the famous Face on Mars photo, taken by the Viking 1 craft. The image proceeded to freak out a whole lot of people who believe the face is evidence of a lost Martian civilization that also built pyramids on Mars. Most analysts believe the face is simply a trick of the light. I guess we'll have to see what the Phoenix Rover has to say about all this. And that's all the faces in the sky we've got for you today; come on back tomorrow for more alien experiments in tech history.

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