Day in Engineering History Archive - December 18
December 18
1856:
Sir J.J. Thomson, who won a Nobel Prize for his work on cathode
rays, was born. 1890: American electrical engineer
Edwin Armstrong, a pioneer in radio communications and electronic
theory and inventor of the CW transmitter, regenerative & superheterodyne
circuits, and frequency modulation, was born. 1926: G.N. Lewis coined
the word "photon." 1957: The
Shippingport Atomic Power Station in PA, the first civilian
nuclear facility to generate electricity in the United States, went
online. 1958: Project
SCORE (Signal Communication by Orbiting Relay Equipment), the
first American communication satellite, was launched on an Atlas
booster. 1977: Voyager 1 took the first photograph of the Earth
and the moon together. 1997: The 9.3-mile toll expressway,
Tokyo Bay Aqualine bridge and tunnel that spans the narrowest
gap of Tokyo Bay, opened to traffic after 31 years of studies. 1998:
ICANN, the Internet
Corporation For Assigned Names and Numbers, was formed.
1856:
Sir J.J. Thomson, who won a Nobel Prize for his work on cathode
rays, was born. 1890: American electrical engineer
Edwin Armstrong, a pioneer in radio communications and electronic
theory and inventor of the CW transmitter, regenerative & superheterodyne
circuits, and frequency modulation, was born. 1926: G.N. Lewis coined
the word "photon." 1957: The
Shippingport Atomic Power Station in PA, the first civilian
nuclear facility to generate electricity in the United States, went
online. 1958: Project
SCORE (Signal Communication by Orbiting Relay Equipment), the
first American communication satellite, was launched on an Atlas
booster. 1977: Voyager 1 took the first photograph of the Earth
and the moon together. 1997: The 9.3-mile toll expressway,
Tokyo Bay Aqualine bridge and tunnel that spans the narrowest
gap of Tokyo Bay, opened to traffic after 31 years of studies. 1998:
ICANN, the Internet
Corporation For Assigned Names and Numbers, was formed.| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
Note: These historical tidbits have been collected from various sources, mostly on the Internet. As detailed in
this article,
there is a lot of wrong information that is repeated hundreds of times because most websites do not validate with authoritative
sources. On RF Cafe, events with hyperlinks have been verified.
Please submit significant historical events and
dates for inclusion in these lists. I will be glad to include your name and birthday. Please do not submit your death
date ;-) A couple years ago, I began commemorating the birthdays of notable people and events with
special RF Cafe logos. Where available, I like to use images
from postage stamps from the country where the person or event occurred.