Today in Tech History: July 4, 2008 Video
Today in Tech History: July 4, 2008 Video Transcript
Hi, I'm Molly Wood. It's July 4, 2008, happy Independence Day to our U.S. viewers! Here's what happened today in technology history. On this date in 1837, the world's first long-distance railway opened. The Grand Junction Railway ran 82 miles, from Birmingham and Liverpool, in the United Kingdom. Also today, in 1934, Leo Szilard patented the chain-reaction design for the atomic bomb. In 1936, actually, he assigned the patent to the British Admiralty, in order to make sure it stayed secret. He was also a co-holder of the patent on the nuclear reactor, and was directly responsible for the creation of the Manhattan Project. Today in 1997, NASA's Pathfinder space probe landed on the surface of Mars, and in other space news, in 2003 on this date, the Deep Impact collider hit the comet Tempel 1 ... on purpose. For research. And finally, today is the birthday of [1961]Richard Allen Garriott, a game designer and programmer who developed the Ultima computer game series. He is scheduled to fly to the International Space Station this coming October as the sixth space tourist. And that'll do it for today, space fans. See you back here tomorrow for more tech history.
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