Day in Engineering History Archive - April 7

April 7

1827: Englishman John Walker sold his first friction matches. 1860: W(ill) K(eith) Kellogg, founder of the Kellogg cereal company, was born. 1913: The first electrically propelled ship of the U.S. Navy, the U.S.S. Jupiter, was commissioned. 1927: The first long-distance TV transmission was sent from Washington, DC, to New York City. 1928: The Detroit Police Department commenced regular one-way radio communication with its patrol cars. 1945: Japan's largest battleship of WWII, the Yamato, was sunk by Allied forces. 1947: Automobile magnate Henry Ford died. 1953: IBM unveiled the IBM 701 Electronic Data Processing Machine - their first commercially available scientific computer. 1957: The last of New York City's electric trolleys completed its final run from Queens to Manhattan. 1959: The first atomic generated electricity was produced at Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, NM. 1959: The first radar signal was bounced off the sun from Stanford, CA. 1981: Willem Klein mentally extracted the 13th root of a 100-digit number in 29 seconds. 1983: Story Musgrave and Don Peterson made the first Space Shuttle spacewalk.