The age of the jumbo jet arrives, Steve Jobs is back at Apple and a Tesla Roadster heads into space… It all happened This Week in Tech History.
This week back in 1863 – The fire extinguisher was patented by Alanson Crane. The invention quickly became a flaming success…
1893 – Elisha Gray, of Highland Park, IL, publicly exhibited his machine called the telautograph. This was an analog precursor to what many years later became known as the fax machine.
1963 – The very first Boeing 727 took off. It became the world’s most popular way to fly. More than 1,800 of the aircraft were built before production stopped in 1984.
1969 – The Boeing 747 flew its inaugural flight this day. The milestone ushered in the age of the jumbo jet.
In 1997 this week, NeXT Computer merged with Apple Computer, starting the path to Mac OS X and Steve Jobs regaining control of Apple, the company that kicked him to the curb.
1997 – After a two-day chase, space shuttle Discovery’s astronauts hauled the Hubble Space Telescope aboard to begin a $350 million refurbishment to increase the performance of the telescope.
And this week in 2018 – SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy, a super heavy launch vehicle, made its maiden flight, carrying Elon Musk’s personal Tesla Roadster into space. Blasting out of the car’s speakers, was a loop of David Bowie’s song, “Life on Mars.”