November 16

Arecibo x-mission logo

1841: Jules-Louis-Gabriel Violle, who made the first high altitude measurement of the solar constant and after whom the Violle standard of luminous intensity was named, was born. 1904: The first true electron tube, a diode thermionic valve, was patented in Great Britain by John Ambrose Fleming. 1914: The Federal Reserve Bank officially opened. 1915: A patent was issued for the first Coca-Cola bottle with the trademark curved shape. 1927: The USS Saratoga was commissioned as the Navy's second aircraft carrier. 1965: The Russian Venera 3 spacecraft, which became the first to reach the surface of another planet, was launched. 1973: President Nixon authorized construction of Trans-Alaskan Pipeline. 1974: The first signal was broadcast into space from the 1000 foot radio telescope in Arecibo, Puerto Rico. 1977: Close Encounters of the Third Kind opened in theaters. 1984: The space shuttle Discovery, STS-51-A, returned to Earth with the first two satellites ever plucked from space. 2004 NASA's X-43A scramjet set a new record of Mach 9.6.