Today in Tech History: June 15, 2008 Video

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Today in Tech History: June 15, 2008
Created: 06/12/2008
Video description: The first blood transfusion, flying a kite in a thunderstorm, and exploding air balloons.

Today in Tech History: June 15, 2008 Video Transcript

Hi, I'm Tom Merritt. It's June 15, 2008, and here's what happened today in technology history. On this date in 1667, Dr. Jean-Baptiste Denys administered the first human blood transfusion -- nine ounces of lamb's blood to a 15- year-old boy. It didn't, uh, end well. Also on this date in 1752, some say that Benjamin Franklin flew a kite in a thunderstorm in Philadelphia in order to prove that lightning is electricity. Some other people say it never happened. I say, it still makes the show. In other 18th century tech news, it was on this date in 1785 that Jean-Fran?ois Pil?tre de Rozier or something like that and Pierre Romain (thank you Pierre for having an easier-to-pronounce name) became the first people to be killed in an air crash, and I just made fun of them. Their hot air balloon exploded during their attempt to cross the English Channel. De Rozier had been the co-pilot of the first-ever manned flight, in 1783. And finally, today in 1911, the Tabulating Computing Recording Corporation was incorporated. It would later become ... IBM! And that's it for today's installment. Come on back tomorrow for more on the evolution of technology. It's a dangerous business.

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