History of Engineering and Technology

IEEE History Center newsletter #113 now available. In this issue: The IEEE HISTORY CENTER TURNS 40; HISTORY CENTER’S WORLD-CLASS ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION; THE ETHW’S EXPANDING RESOURCES, and EEG CONTROL, BRAIN COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY, AND THE ARTS.  For full issue: https://www.ieee.org/about/history-center/newsletters.html

On July 16, 1969, the Apollo 11 Saturn V space vehicle lifted off with Astronauts Neil A. Armstrong, Michael Collins and Edwin E. Aldrin Jr, the first crewed mission to land on the moon.

Read more at https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-history/space-age/how-nasa-recruited-snoopy-and-drafted-barbie

1961 stamp commemorating Yuri Gagarin's April 12th 1961 flight, the first manned spaceflight in history.

Happy birthday to Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman to have flown in space. Tereshkova’s first mission, out of a total of 48 in orbit throughout her career, was on Vostok 6 on June 16th, 1963.

On February 20th 1962, Col. John Glenn piloted the Mercury Friendship 7 spacecraft in the first United States human-orbital flight.

1912 Harrisburg Light and Power Company advertisement.

U.S. Census Bureau employees, circa 1960s, with the Film Optical Sensing Device for Input to Computers (FOSDIC), a device used to transfer data from paper questionnaires to microfilm.

Melba Roy, January 1st, 1964. Roy headed the group of NASA mathematicians, known as "computers," who tracked the Echo satellites. Roy's computations helped produce the orbital element timetables by which millions could view the satellite from Earth as it passes overhead. She went on to become Program Production Section Chief at Goddard Space Flight Center.

Trackwomen, Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, 1943.

Unidentified riveter at Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, Burbank, California, circa 1940-1945

Dorothy Whitaker at the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) magnetic tape library, circa 1960s-70s.

Anna Bland, a burner, working on the SS George Washington Carver, April, 1943.

Thaddeus Cahill's 1897 patent for the Telharmonium's tonewheel mechanism, one of the earliest musical instruments to generate sound by means of electricity.

Alexander Graham Bell's Oionos triplane, 1910

An illustration from Charles Barnard's 1875 short story "Kate: An Electro-Mechanical Romance". In this scene, Kate and John are installing a private telegraph line for their amorous communications using abandoned wires.

John Schafer with wife Neta Smith Schafer and daughter Bernice beside 1922 Buick Six automobile at railroad logging camp, circa 1924.