On November 18, 1883, the American and Canadian railroads began following a British practice to use a “standard time” based on regional zones to report boarding and arrival times for their trains. Prior to this date, most towns and cities kept local solar time, so that noon in each municipality was slightly different, depending on… Continue reading November 18: The Day of the Two Noons
Category: American History
October 29: Arpanet
On October 29, 1969, around 10:30pm PST, Charley Kline, a student at UCLA using the SDS host computer in Boelter Hall, logged into the SDS 940 computer at the Stanford Research Center 350 miles away in the first successful ARPANET computer-to-computer transmission using a wide-area packet-switched network. Within a month, the UCLA-Stanford computers were permanently… Continue reading October 29: Arpanet
October 28: The Statue of Liberty
On this day in 1886, President Grover Cleveland dedicated a statue in New York City. It was no simple ceremony. There was a parade from Madison Square down Fifth Avenue and Broadway to the Battery. Traders at the New York Stock exchange threw ticker tape out the windows as the parade passed, beginning the tradition… Continue reading October 28: The Statue of Liberty