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Items tagged with: OnThisDay


Today in 1995, 30 years ago: in the United States, Microsoft launches the Windows 95 operating system.​​

#OnThisDay




Alan Turing died by suicide on 7 June 1954. Turing was convicted of gross indecency in 1952 and given a choice between imprisonment and probation. His probation would be conditional on his agreement to undergo hormonal physical changes designed to reduce his libido. Turing's conviction led to the removal of his security clearance and barred him from continuing with his consultancy for GCHQ. He was denied entry into the United States after his conviction.

#AlanTuring #GayRights #OnThisDay



Very early #OnThisDay, 12 Apr 1944, Odette Wilen parachutes into France to work as a wireless operator for the British Special Operations Executive. The SOE supports the French resistance.

Wireless operators were at the greatest risk of discovery, as their position could be triangulated whenever they were transmitting messages back to London.

Wilen evades capture by minutes and escapes over the Pyrenees. She lives until 2015.

#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #WorldWar2 #Histodons


#OnThisDay, 24 Feb 1968, Jocelyn Bell Burnell - along with her male supervisor and three other men - published a paper confirming the discovery of pulsars. She had built the array, picked up the signal and argued it was not an anomaly. Hewish received the Nobel prize for it in 1974: Bell Burnell did not.

In 2018 Bell Burnell received a £3m prize for her work. She's used it to set up a foundation to improve the diversity in STEM.

#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #Histodons


#OnThisDay Birth Anniversary of Louis Braille (1809) - French educator and inventor of a system of reading and writing for use by the #Blind or visually impaired. Today is observed as World #BrailleDay.

Birth Anniversary of Floyd Patterson (1935) - One of the greatest #Boxers. He was the youngest boxer in history to win the #Heavyweight championship.

#Sputnik 1, first artificial Earth satellite, falls to Earth from orbit (1958).

knowledgezone.co.in/news



The first text message was sent on this day in 1992 by then a 22-year-old engineer Neil Papworth to wish "Merry Christmas" to his colleague.

"It didn't feel momentous at all. For me it was just getting my job done on the day and ensuring that our software that we'd been developing for a good year was working OK."

history.com/this-day-in-histor…

#OTD #OnThisDay #technology #history #phone #TextMessage #MerryChristmas





Very early #OnThisDay, 6 May 1944, Marguerite 'Peggy' Knight parachutes into occupied France to be a courier for the Special Operations Executive. The British SOE supported the French resistance.

Knight fought her way out of an attempted capture, and returned to the UK in September 1944.

#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #WorldWar2 #Histodons


#OnThisDay, 19 Apr 1967, Katherine Switzer becomes the first woman to complete the Boston Marathon as a registered runner, despite the organiser physically trying to stop her.

She ran it again in 2017, 50 years later.

#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #AmericanHistory


#OnThisDay, 7 Jan 1939, French physicist Marguerite Perey discovers element 87, which she later names francium. It was the last element to be discovered naturally.

Perey was a student of Marie Curie, and was nominated five times for the Nobel Prize but never received it.

#WomenInHistory #WomenInSTEM #ScienceHistory #History #Histodons



Today in 1994, 29 years ago: WXYC, the student radio station of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, launches the world's first internet radio broadcast.

#OnThisDay



Today in 1983, 40 years ago: The ARPANET officially changes to using TCP/IP, the Internet Protocol, effectively creating the Internet.

#OnThisDay