First UHF TV Station

bridgeDecember 29, 1949

Station KC2XAK of Bridgeport, Connecticut becomes the first Ultra high frequency (UHF) television station to operate a daily schedule. How many of you are wondering what UHF TV is? Raise your hands … don’t be shy!

Set up as a working experiment by RCA and NBC, the station was used to test if the UHF spectrum was feasible to broadcast TV. Codenamed “Operation Bridgeport,” after two-and-a-half years of successful transmission, the station was shut down. The UHF transmitter was purchased, dismantled, and reassembled in Portland, Oregon to power the first commercial UHF station in the United States.

First Public Projected Movie Screening

Cinématographe_LumièreDecember 28, 1895

The world’s first projected movie screening takes place at the Salon Indien at the Grand Café in Paris, France. The makeshift theater uses the Cinématographe created by the Lumière Brothers, one of the earliest motion picture projectors in history. Thirty-three people attend at the admission price of one franc each to view 10 films at about 50 seconds each. The first film, La Sortie des ouvriers de l’usine Lumière, was created especially for the occasion. It shows workers leaving the Lumières’ factory in Lyon by foot, by bicycle, and by car.

The First Electric Christmas Tree Lights

JohnsonEdward-FirstElectricTreeDecember 22, 1882

Edward Johnson, an associate of Thomas Edison, has walnut-sized bulbs made specifically for him to wire his Christmas Tree with electric light. The 80 red, white, and blue bulbs formed the first set of electric Christmas Tree lights in history. Prior to this, people would traditionally decorate their trees with wax candles.

Snow White Premieres

Snow WhiteDecember 21, 1937

Walt Disney premiers the animated film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. It was the first full-length animated feature film taking 3 years and nearly $1.5 million to produce, a massive amount for a feature film in 1937. Walt Disney had to mortgage his house to help finance the film.

Wright Brothers First Powered Flight

jb_progress_flight_1_eDecember 17, 1903

Orville and Wilbur Wright make their famous first controlled and sustained flights with a heavier than air, powered aircraft. Orville made the very first flight which lasted about 12 seconds. Three more flights were made that day by both brothers, with the most successful being the fourth and final flight in which Wilbur flew for 59 seconds. The work done by the Wright brothers helped spawn the aviation industry.

Segway Unveiled

Segway i167December 3, 2001

Inventor Dean Kamen unveils the Segway self-balancing, battery-powered vehicle on the TV show Good Morning America. The Segway uses computers and motors in its base to keep itself upright while the user is riding it. Users shift their weight to control the Segway. While not considered a commercial success, the Segway has definitely become a familiar icon of personal transportation.

Barnes and Noble Releases Nook

nook_Color_NavigationNovember 30, 2009

Book retailer Barnes and Noble releases their first Nook e-reader to compete with the highly successful Amazon Kindle, released two years earlier.

While late to the game, and competing not only against Amazon but Apple’s iPad for e-reader marketshare, the Nook has competed well, likely due to Barnes and Noble’s strength as one of the few remaining brick and mortar book stores.

MP3 Patented in US

Logo_MP3

There is no official logo for MPEG Audio Layer III, otherwise known as MP3

November 26, 1996

United States Patent 5,579,430 is granted to the Fraunhofer Institut in Germany for a “digital encoding process”, the technology used in MEPG Audio Layer III, more commonly known as MP3. MP3 technology paved the way for the digital music industry by creating a high-quality format that was compressible so that many songs could fit on the relatively small data storage devices of the time. Fraunhofer had started work on compressing music as far back as 1977, began work on what would become MP3 in 1987, and was awarded a patent in Germany in 1989.

Toy Story Changes the Movies

Toy Story (1995)November 22, 1995

Walt Disney Pictures releases the Pixar Animation Studios production Toy Story, the first major motion picture that is created completely by computer-generated animation. A breakthrough film, Toy Story set the standard for all future computer animated films to follow and catapulted Pixar into a household name.

Amazon Ignites the Kindle

original-amazon-kindleNovember 19, 2007

Amazon introduces their Kindle e-book reader. Where other companies had released e-book readers in previous years with limited success, the Kindle’s integration with Amazon’s industry leading book distribution system helped catapult the e-reader into the the mainstream consciousness. The Kindle sold out within five hours of its debut.