Today in Tech History: June 24, 2008 Video
Today in Tech History: June 24, 2008 Video Transcript
Hi, I'm Molly Wood. It's June 24, 2008, and here's what happened today in technology history. On this date in 1947, American businessman and pilot Kenneth Arnold made the first widely reported sighting of a UFO in the United States. He reported seeing nine disc-shaped objects flying in a chain near Mount Rainier, Washington. The press coined the term "flying saucer," and his reports were considered the birth of the modern UFO age. The U.S. Air Force formally ruled the Arnold case ... a mirage. Of COURSE they did. Critics say there has never been a completely believable explanation for what Arnold saw. Also, today is the birthday of Craig Shergold[1979], Internet phenomenon. Shergold was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer in 1989, and his parents started an e-mail chain letter asking for greeting cards for him. They got them. 35 million of them, and ended up in the Guinness Book of World Records. Then, in 1991, American billionaire John Kluge paid for successful brain surgery and Shergold recovered ... but that chain letter is still going, and the family STILL gets greeting cards, even though they have moved and stopped their mail service. Chain letters. BAD. And that's today's tech history lesson. Remember it, and come on back tomorrow for more schoolin'.
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