Episode 749: The Nerdvana Chronicles

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• QOTW: 
  • If you could fund research to solve one major scientific problem, what would it be and why? 

On This Day In History for August 7, 2024

This is the 220th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 146 days remaining in 2024.

• It was on this date in 1679, that The brigantine Le Griffon became the first ship to sail the upper Great Lakes of North America.
• Also today in 1909, Alice Huyler Ramsey and three friends became the first women to complete a transcontinental auto trip, taking 59 days to travel from New York, New York to San Francisco, California.
• On August 7, 1944, IBM dedicated the first program-controlled calculator, the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator (known best as the Harvard Mark I).
• It was also this date in 1947 that Thor Heyerdahl’s balsa wood raft, the Kon-Tiki, smashed into the reef at Raroia in the Tuamotu Islands after a 101 -day, 7,000 kilometers (4,300 mi) journey across the Pacific Ocean in an attempt to prove that prehistoric peoples could have traveled from South America.
• It was on this date in 1959 that Explorer 6 launched from the Atlantic Missile Range in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
• That same date in 1974, Philippe Petit performed a high wire act between the twin towers of the World Trade Center 1,368 feet (417 m) in the air.
• Viking 2 entered orbit around Mars on this date in 1976.
• Also today in 1978, U.S. President Jimmy Carter declared a federal emergency at Love Canal due to toxic waste that had been disposed of negligently.
• It was on this date in 1987, that Lynne Cox became the first person to swim from the United States to the Soviet Union, crossing the Bering Strait from Little Diomede Island in Alaska to Big Diomede in the Soviet Union.
• Also today in 1997, The Space Shuttle Discovery launched on STS-85 from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Happy birthday goes out on this date to:

• English explorer and cartographer, Robert Dudley, born on this date in 1574.
• German geographer and academic, Carl Ritter was born 245 years ago today.
• Mary Frances Winston, American mathematician was born on that same date in 1869.
• Kenyan-English palaeontologist and archaeologist, Louis Leakey was born 121 years ago today.
• American puppeteer, voice actor, and singer, Stan Freberg, born on this date in 1926.
• James Randi, Canadian-American stage magician and author was born on that same date in 1928.
• Also turning 46 today is American actor Cirroc Lofton.

Listener Birthdays

• 4 – Clark & Diana (Awesome people and the kids of Gary from Jacksonville)
• 6 – Fritz The German
• 6 – Julie Tomasi
• 8 – Philippa Ballantine
• 9 – Matt Coe (WoWaddict) [1991]
• 9 – Julia Posz – (Technorama Promo)
• 10 – Sam Martin
• 11 – Steve Wozniak
• 11 – David Brewer (Tyrion The Imp)
• 13 – Christine Fiore MegaPodTastic and Honey, You’ve *GOT* to See This!
• 17 – Clive Jevons, Baeumenheim German, Kevin (SusietheGeek’s son and Geek in Training)

And that’s the way it was, on this day in history for August 7, 2024

• If you want to get on the Technorama Birthday Calendar, visit our website and look for the Birthday Calendar link.

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