Today in History – July 31, 2008 – To date, QinetiQ breaks unofficial world record for unmanned flight over three and a half days US Army’s Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona. The record is “unofficial” as QinetiQ conducted the research under a military contract to perform a military utility assessment of a US Government [...]

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Today in History – July 31, 1790 – first U.S. patent went to Samuel Hopkins for an improvement “in the making Pot ash and Pearl ash by a new Apparatus and Process.” President George Washington, Attorney General Edmund Randolph, and Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson signed the patent. Only two other patents [...]

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Today in History – July 29, 1958 – NASA is established. Before the launch of Sputnik, the United States felt confident in its position on space technology. The modern liquid fueled rocket had been invented in America by Robert Goddard. In addition Wernher von Braun, the developer of the successful German V2 rocket was working [...]

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Today in History – July 22, 1975 – Bill Gates and Paul Allen sign Microsoft’s first official contract licensing their BASIC to MITS, the makers of the Altair kit computer. The young entrepreneurs had hit upon a revolutionary new concept—the idea that a company could make money selling software for microcomputers. As Bill puts [...]

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Encouraging young people to make a difference in the world through an engineering career is more likely to attract them than emphasizing the challenges of math and science. This is the major message of the recently published report of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) titled Changing the Conversation: Messages for Improving Public Understanding of [...]

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