“Life’s like a movie. Write your own ending.” — Kermit the Frog
1775 – The United States Marine Corps is founded at Tun Tavern in Philadelphia by Samuel Nicholas.
The United States Marine Corps traces its institutional roots to the Continental Marines of the American Revolutionary War, formed by Captain Samuel Nicholas by a resolution of the Second Continental Congress on 10 November 1775, to raise two battalions of Marines. That date is regarded and celebrated as the date of the Marine Corps’ birthday. At the end of the American Revolution, both the Continental Navy and Continental Marines were disbanded in April 1783. The institution itself would not be resurrected until 11 July 1798. At that time, in preparation for the Quasi-War with France, Congress created the United States Marine Corps. Marines had been enlisted by the War Department as early as August 1797 for service in the new-build frigates authorized by the Congressional “Act to provide a Naval Armament” of 18 March 1794, which specified the numbers of Marines to be recruited for each frigate.
1887 – Elisa Leonida Zamfirescu, one of the world’s first female engineers, is born.
…Due to prejudices against women in the sciences, Zamfirescu was rejected by the School of Bridges and Roads in Bucharest. In 1909 she was accepted at the Royal Academy of Technology Berlin, Charlottenburg. She graduated in 1912, with a degree in engineering. It has been claimed that Zamfirescu was the world’s first female engineer, but the Irish engineer Alice Perry graduated four years before Zamfirescu in 1908.
1933 – Ronald Evans, American captain, engineer, and astronaut, is born.
Ronald Ellwin “Ron” Evans, Jr., was an American naval officer and aviator, electrical engineer, aeronautical engineer, and NASA astronaut, also one of only 24 people to have flown to the Moon.
Evans was selected as an astronaut by NASA as part of Astronaut Group 5 in 1966 and made his first and only flight into space as Command Module Pilot aboard Apollo 17 in 1972, the last manned mission to the Moon to date, with Commander Eugene Cernan and Lunar Module Pilot Harrison Schmitt. During the flight, he orbited the Moon as his two crewmates descended to the surface. Consequently, he is the last person to orbit the Moon alone. In 1975 Evans served as backup Command Module Pilot for the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project mission.
1951 – With the rollout of the North American Numbering Plan, direct-dial coast-to-coast telephone service begins in the United States.
…The first customer-dialed direct call using area codes was made on November 10, 1951, from Englewood, New Jersey, to Alameda, California. Direct distance dialing (DDD) was subsequently introduced across the country and by the early 1960s most areas of the Bell System had been converted and it was commonplace in cities and most larger towns.
1969 – National Educational Television (the predecessor to the Public Broadcasting Service) in the United States debuts the children’s television program Sesame Street.
Sesame Street is a long-running American children’s television series created by Joan Ganz Cooney and Lloyd Morrisett. The program is known for its educational content, and images communicated through the use of Jim Henson’s Muppets, animation, short films, humor, and cultural references. The series premiered on November 10, 1969, to positive reviews, some controversy, and high viewership; it has aired on the U.S.’s national public television provider (PBS) since its debut, with its first run moving to premium channel HBO beginning in 2015.
The show has undergone significant changes throughout its history. The format of Sesame Street consists of a combination of commercial television production elements and techniques which have evolved to reflect the changes in American culture and the audience’s viewing habits. With the creation of Sesame Street, producers and writers of a children’s television show used, for the first time, educational goals and a curriculum to shape its content. It was also the first time a show’s educational effects were studied.
Shortly after creating Sesame Street, its producers developed what came to be called the “CTW model” (named for the show’s production company, the Children’s Television Workshop), a system of television show planning, production, and evaluation based on collaborations between producers, writers, educators, and researchers. The show was initially funded by government and private foundations but has become somewhat self-supporting due to revenues from licensing arrangements, international sales, and other media. By 2006, there were independently produced versions, or “co-productions”, of Sesame Street broadcast in twenty countries. In 2001 there were over 120 million viewers of various international versions of Sesame Street, and by the show’s 40th anniversary in 2009, it was broadcast in more than 140 countries.
By its 40th anniversary in 2009, Sesame Street was the fifteenth-highest rated children’s television show in the United States. A 1996 survey found that 95% of all American preschoolers had watched the show by the time they were three years old. In 2008, it was estimated that 77 million Americans had watched the series as children. As of 2014, Sesame Street has won 159 Emmy Awards and 8 Grammy Awards—more than any other children’s show.
1983 – Bill Gates introduces Windows 1.0.
The development of Windows began after Microsoft founder Bill Gates saw a demonstration at COMDEX 1982 of VisiCorp’s Visi On, a graphical user interface software suite for IBM PC compatibles.
Microsoft first presented Windows to the public on November 10, 1983. Requiring two floppy disk drives and 192 KB of RAM, Microsoft described the software as a device driver for MS-DOS 2.0. By supporting cooperative multitasking in tiled windows when using well-behaved applications that only used DOS system calls, and permitting non-well-behaved applications to run in a full screen, Windows differs from both Visi On and Apple Computer’s Lisa by immediately offering many applications. Unlike Visi On, Windows developers did not need to use Unix to develop IBM PC applications; Microsoft planned to encourage other companies, including competitors, to develop for Windows by not requiring a Microsoft user interface in their applications. Many manufacturers of MS-DOS computers such as Compaq, Zenith, and DEC promised support, as did software companies such as Ashton-Tate and Lotus. After previewing Windows, BYTE stated in December 1983 that it “seems to offer remarkable openness, reconfigurability, and transportability as well as modest hardware requirements and pricing … Barring a surprise product introduction from another company, Microsoft Windows will be the first large-scale test of the desktop metaphor in the hands of its intended users”.
2009 – MiniPOV in Popular Science!
The MiniPOV made an appearance in the latest issue of Popular Science (Nov 2009)!
2011 – Adafruit joins Google +
We did a fun experiment with google+ ‘s new pages for companies. We now have the Adafruit Industries page, it worked out great! If you missed out on this one, don’t worry – we’ll do it again!
