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March 28, 1979: Meltdown of Three Mile Island

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Three Mile Island Meltdown
Three Mile Island Meltdown
1979 – At 4 PM EST, the nuclear reactors in Middletown, PA (Dauphin County) experienced a partial meltdown. The incident was officially rated a 5-of-7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale: Accident with wider consequences. A stuck open pilot relief valve was to blame for the incident in the primary system. The valve allowed for nuclear reactor coolant to escape into the atmosphere. During the event, the EPA was dispached where they took daily samples of the air to make sure the levels were not harmful to the community. The evacuation of Middletown was ordered 28 hours later – mostly women and children. Only half of the 663,500 population evacuated within a 20 mile radius.

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Other Events in the Day in Technology History
  • Kodak releases the DC40 camera
  • Yahoo launches Yahoo! Photos
  • Windows XP 64 is released
 

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Days Before

March 28, 1979: Meltdown of Three Mile Island

Subscribe! Spotify | RSS | More 1979 – At 4 PM EST, the nuclear reactors in Middletown, PA (Dauphin County) experienced a partial meltdown. The incident was officially rated a 5-of-7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale: Accident with wider consequences. A stuck open pilot relief valve was to blame for the incident in the primary […]

March 27, 1982: Pac-Man Fever Hits #9

Subscribe! Spotify | RSS | More 1982 –  Recorded in 1981, the song Pac-Man fever was a song by (Jerry ) Buckner & (Gary) Garcia. Each song on the album was about a different video game and was released via album, cassette, 8-track and later via CD. The song is a parody of “Cat Scratch […]

March 26, 1976: Altair Computer Convention

Subscribe! Spotify | RSS | More 1976 – The First Annual World Altair Computer Convention is held at the Airport Marina Hotel near Albuquerque, New Mexico. Bill Gates opens the convention with his position on software piracy. Of course, it was all about the Altair 8800. MITS (Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems) was a computer that came […]

March 25, 1994: Microsoft Excel 4.0

Subscribe! Spotify | RSS | More 1994 – Microsoft released Excel 4.0. It included an Easter egg animation of the Excel logo crushing the numbers 1-2-3. Other Day in Tech History items: AOL and eBay cross marketing agreement Excel 4.0 is released The first Computers Freedom and Privacy Conference

March 24, 1802: The Puffing Devil Steam Engine Patent

Subscribe! Spotify | RSS | More 1802 – A patent for the first steam engine was issued to Richard Trevithick and Andrew Viviane. The machine was called the “Puffing Devil” or “Puffer”. The engine could produce 145 psi to push the car forward. Richard had two versions of the engine – one as a car and […]

March 23, 2001: Mir Crashes Down in Deorbit

Subscribe! Spotify | RSS | More 2001 – It’s called the “Deorbit” – Space Station Mir was a controlled re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere. Ultimately, the space station burned up over the ocean by New Zeland. Some parts of Mir could survive the re-entry process, so putting the ship over a large body of water was […]

March 22, 1981: RCA Selectavision Videodisc

Subscribe! Spotify | RSS | More 1981 – The first vinyl video record, a.k.a. the videodisc, hit stores in the U.S. The “Capacitance Electronic Disc” looked just like any other vinyl record protected in a plastic caddy and held 60 minutes of NTSC video. That is approximately 27,000 frames per second. However, the CED players did […]

March 21, 2006: The First Tweet and Twitter is Founded

Subscribe! Spotify | RSS | More 2006 – Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, Biz Stone and Noah Glass launch Twitter (a.k.a. Twttr) with Jack’s first Tweet. “Just setting up my Twttr” went across the network of only a few followers. Similar to Alexander Graham Bell’s “Mr. Watson, come here” statement or “Mary Had a Little Lamb” into a […]

March 20, 1916: The Foundation of the General Theory of Relativity

Subscribe! Spotify | RSS | More 1916 – Albert Einstein sent a paper off to Annelen Der Physik. The paper was called “Die Grundlage der Allgemeinen Relativitatstheorie” – translated as “The Foundation of the General Theory of Relativity”. The paper included the Principle considerations about the Postulate of Relativity, Mathmatical auxiliiaries for establishing the general covariant […]

March 19, 1997: First Consumer DVD Player Released in U.S.

Subscribe! Spotify | RSS | More 1997 – Toshiba – a member of the DVD consortium – put out the first consumer DVD player on November 1, 1996 in Japan as the SD-3000. After some initial changes (and having to change the DVD region code for U.S. based DVD players), Toshiba debuted two U.S. models – […]