Today in Tech History – April 17

1944 – Harvard Mark I Operating

             Harvard University President James Conant writes to IBM founder Thomas Watson Sr. to let him know that the Harvard Mark I, developed in cooperation between the two, was operating smoothly. The project was one of the many examples of wartime collaboration among the federal government, universities, and private corporations. In his letter, Conant noted that the Mark I already was “being used for special problems in connection with the war effort.”

1967 – Surveyor 3 Launched

             The spacecraft Surveyor 3 is launched from Cape Kennedy, Florida. It is the second U.S. spacecraft to make a soft landing on the Moon (Surveyor 2 crash landed) where it will study the lunar surface and send more than 6,300 pictures back to Earth. In all, seven Surveyors will be sent to the Moon, five of them successfully completing soft landings.

1970 – The Apollo 13 spacecraft returned safely to Earth after a frightening malfunction caused the team to abort landing on the Moon and instead scramble to keep themselves alive.

2000 – Terraserver Releases Photos of Area 51

             Five arial images of Area 51 are leaked onto Terraserver from a Russian satellite called “Sovinformsputnik”. The amount of traffic that went to the site brought the server down, so they had to take the photos off until they could handle the traffic.

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