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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February is African American History Month. Celebrate by browsing the Engineering Pathway‘s resources on African American scientists, engineers & inventors and our computing and engineering diversity websites. Readers interested in inventions by African Americans may want to view the following blogs: Ice cream scoop invented (February 2),  First patent by African American Inventor Latimer (February [...]

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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, 2009 – Television originally scheduled to go digital in the U.S. Congress mandated this as the date when all full-power TV stations would cease to broadcast analog programming. This transition to digital television was promoted as enabling more efficient use of the nation’s airwaves, including allowing new advanced wireless [...]

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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 [...]

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