1797 – Nathaniel Briggs of New Hampshire patented an early form of washing machine for clothes, called the “box mangler.”
1880 – The first electric street lights ever installed by a municipality were turned on in Wabash, IN.
1951 – Remington Rand delivered the first UNIVAC I computer to the United States Census Bureau.
In 1954 – The Radio Corporation of America (RCA) began commercial production of TV sets that were equipped to receive programs in color. To buy 
one of those huge sets, consumers spent upwards of $1,000. Now, that’ll be about $8,500 today.
And this week in 1974 – NASA’s Mariner 10 became the first space probe to fly by Mercury.