iPhone 4 Goes on Sale
June 24, 2010
After a wild lead-up involving a prototype being lost at a bar, Apple’s iPhone 4 officially went on sale. Later the iPhone 4 would then become the subject of the Antennagate controversy. With so much attention given to the phone, it really was no wonder that it went on to set sales records.
The First Practical Typewriter Patented
June 23, 1868
Latham Sholes, Carlos Glidden, and Samuel Soule are awarded a patent for the “Type-Writer” which would become the basis for the first practical and commercially successful typewriter. Evolving into what would become known as the Sholes and Glidden typewriter (which would later become the Remington No. 1), one of its lasting legacies was the introduction of the QWERTY keyboard, which is still the most popular keyboard layout in the world to this day.
A popular theory states that the design of the QWERTY keyboard was intended to slow down typists in order to minimize the clashing of the typebars which would jam up the early typewriters. There is little evidence to support this theory, however, and a research study published in 2011 asserts that the QWERTY design was more directly influenced by feedback from telegraph operators who were early adopters of typewriters and found previous keyboard layouts inefficient.
Apple Passes $500 Billion Valuation
February 29, 2012
The stock value of Apple, Inc. surpasses $500 billion, setting a new record for the company which was already the world’s most valuable company at the time. This day marks a milestone on the historic run for the company from near-bankruptcy in the 1990’s to one of the most, if not the most, dominant technology company in recent history. Apple would later become the first company in history to surpass $700 billion in value in February 2015.
Tokyo Skytree Completed
February 29, 2012
Construction of the Tokyo Skytree broadcast tower, delayed two months due to the 2011 Japan earthquake and tsunami, is completed on leap day – February 29th, 2012. The Tokyo Skytree is the tallest structure in Japan and the world’s tallest tower.