FM stereo takes off, the US heads back to the Moon and a popular video sharing site is born… It all happened This Week in Tech History.
This week in 1941 – Igor Sikorsky accomplished the first successful helicopter lift-off from water near Stratford, CT, when he fitted utility floats, also called pontoons, to the Vought-Sikorsky VS-300. This made the VS-300 the first amphibious helicopter.
1961 – The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) gave approval for FM stereo broadcasting. It would be another five or six years before FM stations went ‘underground’ or ‘progressive’ to attract listeners who were tired of the lack of audio quality on AM stations. FM stations to that time had broadcast in glorious monaural sound.
1971 – The Soviet Union Launched Salyut 1, the very first space station. Salyut 1 spent 175 days in orbit, before re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere and breaking apart over the Pacific Ocean. The Salyut program followed this with five more successful launches. The final module of the program became the core of the Russian segment of the International Space Station and remains in orbit today.
In 1972 – The Apollo 16 Lunar Module, commanded by John Young and piloted by Charles Duke, landed on the moon. The module enjoyed a three-day stay on the moon and the crew spent a total of 20 hours and 14 minutes exploring the surface of the moon.
And this week in 2005 – The first ever YouTube video was uploaded by co-founder Jawed Karim. The 19-second video, titled “Me at the zoo”, was shot by his high school friend at the San Diego Zoo in front of the elephant exhibit. Today, about 500 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute.