Today in History – February 21, 1994 -  Whirlpool begins production of refrigerators without freon. In the 1930s, refrigerators began to use freon as a refrigerant. However, the use of freon became an environmental concern once it was identified as a ozone-depleting chemical. Fortunately, household appliance manufacturers have since switched to a different refrigerant, HFC-134a, [...]

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Today in History – February 18, 1901 – First vacuum cleaner patented by Hubert Cecil Booth, an English structural engineer. This design had the disadvantage that it had no way to collect the dust and never became a commercial success. In 1907, James Spangler, a janitor working in Canton, Ohio, was not aware of this [...]

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Today in History – February 17, 1998 -  Voyager 1 becomes the most distant human-made object from the Sun. Voyager 1 was launched on September 5, 1977 and it passed Saturn in November 1980. It continues a trajectory that takes it out of the solar system, making it the most distant spacecraft from Earth and [...]

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Today in history – February 16, 2005 – the Kyoto Protocol of the United Nations Framework on Climate Change goes into effect. In 1992 the Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was adopted in order to meet the looming concerns of global warming. As greenhouse gas levels rose around the world it became clear that [...]

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Today in History – February 14, 1946 – ENIAC, the world’s first digital electronic computer, is unveiled. ENIAC – Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer – the world’s first operational, general purpose, electronic digital computer, developed at the Moore School of Electrical Engineering, University of Pennsylvania. The ENIAC and the invention of the computer is considered [...]

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