A Brief History On September 19, 1982, Professor Scott Fahlman at Carnegie Mellon University, posted on the school’s bulletin board the first documented emoticons, the simple use of a colon, a dash and either a right or left facing curved bracket, indicating a “Happy Face” or a “Sad Face.” Digging Deeper Born in Medina, Ohio back in 1948, Fahlman is now a Professor Emeritus at Carnegie Mellon and has a long career in academia and in the private sector developing computer languages and software. His studies at MIT included Artificial Intelligence, pioneering work in the field. The idea of “emoticons”…
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A Brief History On September 18, 1928, Spanish engineer and pilot Juan de la Cierva made a bit of obscure aviation history by becoming the first person to fly an autogyro successfully across the English Channel. Digging Deeper The humble autogyro is one of the oddest flying machines still being used, with an unpowered rotating rotor on top making it look deceptively like a helicopter and a pusher propeller located in the back to provide forward thrust. As the autogiro moves forward, the top rotor turns and supplies lift. Not surprisingly, de la Cierva was the inventor of this wild…
A Brief History On September 14, 1999, three tiny countries were admitted to the United Nations, Kiribati, Nauru, and Tonga. The UN currently has 193 members. Digging Deeper Of these Pacific Island countries, Kiribati has 121,000 residents, most of whom live on the atoll of Tarawa, an island infamous from its World War II battle. With an area of only 313 square miles, Kiribati ranks 172nd in area of world countries and 192nd in population Nauru is the baby of the trio, with an area of only 8.1 square miles and a population of under 11,000, ranking 193rd and 227th…
A Brief History On September 8, 1952, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, having been broadcasting radio since 1936, made its first TV broadcast on a subject seldom associated with The Great White North, the second escape from jail by the notorious Boyd Gang of criminals operating out of Toronto. Digging Deeper Canada has a reputation for being a country of nice folks, many of whom have gone on to great success in the United States, but there is more to Canada than poutine and snow, including some nasty criminals. Named for Edwin Boyd who cut his criminal teeth in Saskatchewan and…
A Brief History On September 4, 1781, what is now the City of Los Angeles, California, was founded by four Spanish soldiers and 44 settlers, who called their new settlement El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora La Reina de los Ángeles or perhaps El Pueblo de la Reina de Los Angeles. Digging Deeper The founders of one of the great cities not only of the United States, but of the world, hailed from “New Spain,” what Mexico was called at the time. The province in which Los Angeles was founded was Las Californias, which today would be the State of California…