1903 – The first successful powered airplane flight took place near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. First Orville, then Wilbur Wright kept their invention flying … each flight lasted just under one minute.
This week in 1938 – Vladimir Zworykin of Wilkinsburg, PA patented the iconoscope television system.
In 1951 this week – EBR-I (Experimental Breeder Reactor-I) ushered in a new era in nuclear history when it became the first reactor to generate useable amounts of electricity from nuclear energy. It accomplished this feat by lighting four light bulbs at the National Reactor Testing Station in Butte County, Idaho.
1976 – WTCG-TV, Atlanta, Georgia, owned by Ted Turner, changed call letters to WTBS, and was uplinked via satellite, to become the first commercial TV station to cover the entire U.S. WTBS started on four cable systems, available in 24,000 homes.
And this week in 2009 – Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner, their most fuel-efficient airliner, made its maiden flight from Seattle, Washington.