Forty years ago today, senior Motorola engineer Marty Cooper made one very important phone call. From midtown Manhattan, Marty called Joel Engel, then the head of rival research department Bell Labs. When Joel picked up, Marty uttered something rather unexpected: “Joel, this is Marty. I’m calling you from a cellphone, a real handheld portable cellphone.” More »
Obama may seem like a hip man of the people what with his Google+ hangouts and his Reddit AMAs and his talking to the kids over the Twitters and whatnot, but he’s really just following in FDR’s trailblazing footsteps. Because on March 12, 1933, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt became the very first president to reach the people on a more intimate level—through radio. More »
On the morning of February 28th, 1953, two men quietly made history in the Cavendish Laboratory of Cambridge University. Sixty years ago today, Watson and Crick discovered DNA—and changed the face of biological science in the process. More »
Today is Facebook’s ninth birthday. Twenty five people were there for its arrival, and BuzzFeed FWD has tracked them down. More »
On January 28th 1958, Godtfred Kirk Christiansen patented the humble Lego brick. His company had existed, making other toys, since 1930—but it was 55 years ago today that the infamous studded plastic brick was officially born. More »
Today the Kindle turns five and it’s come a long, long way in that past half-decade. In case you don’t remember, in 2007 the first generation Kindle had a 800 x 600 screen, 250 MB internal memory, and was the only model to ever have a microSD slot. And it launched for the low, low price of $400. Despite the pricetag, the device was wildly popular, selling out in the first few hours, and remaining out of stock until April 2008. More »
Android turns five today! It doesn’t seem like all that long ago that BlackBerries ruled the world, the iPhone was brand new, and the Open Handset Alliance showed everyone its new open source software standard called Android. More »
The ThinkPad is a legendary machine—it’s been in space, it’s displayed in the Museum of Modern Art, and as of today, the classic computer is 20 years old. Happy birthday, old guy. More »
30 years ago today, a game-changing pair of products were announced: Billy Joel’s 52nd Street on Compact Disc, and the Sony CDP-101, the first device to be able to play it. And the age of the CD was born. More »
Just last week, Voyager 2 became NASA’s longest operating spacecraft, and today, the mighty craft celebrates its 35th anniversary. What a long way it has travelled! More »
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