The first 16-man crew to row any ocean was that of the Big Blue, which crossed the Atlantic east to west from Tarfaya in Morocco to Barbados in the West Indies in 47 days 18 hr from 15 January to 4 March 2011. The skipper, David Davlianidze (Georgia), was joined on board the vessel by Ernst Fiby (Austria), Angela Madsen, Ryan Worth, Elizabeth Koenig, Aleksandra Klimas-Mikalauskas, Louise Graff (all USA), Liam Flynn (UK), Steve Roedde, Nigel Roedde, Dylan White, Zach Scher, Charles Wilkins, Sylvain Croteau
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The earliest sound-on-film motion picture was achieved by Eugene Augustin Lauste (1857-1935), who patented his process on 11 August 1906 and produced a workable system using a string galvanometer in 1910 at Benedict Road, Stockwell, London, UK.
The 1976 Games in Toronto, Canada, represented the first time that the Paralympics had been televised in its entirety. Events were broadcast daily to more than half a million viewers across Ontario, Canada.
The Olympics made broadcasting history in 1936 when the Berlin Games was beamed out live in black and white to athletes in the Olympic village and to the wider public in 25 special viewing rooms located in Berlin and Potsdam. This was the first time a sporting event had ever been seen live on television screens and it opened the floodgates. Rome 1960 was the first Olympics to be broadcast live across Europe, while Tokyo 1964 was the first to reach a worldwide audience. Colour
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The earliest public demonstration of underwater TV occurred on the 26 August 1952 at the 19th National Radio and Television Exhibition, London, UK. Marconi Siebe Gorman showed model divers working on the stern of a sunken ship on monitor sets. The cameras used to film the divers weighed 900 kg (1,984 lb), cost £3,500 ($6,400) and could transmit pictures from 455 m (1,492 ft). Marconi Siebe Gorman was a coalition – Marconi for TV, Siebe Gorman are historically linked with aqualungs.
Spelling Bee was first transmitted on BBC television at 10pm on 31 May 1938. Beamed live from Alexandra Palace, the 15-minute show involved the host Freddie Grisewood asking contestants to spell various words, and was based on a successful radio format adapted by the BBC from the US schools’ Spelling Bee competitions. The show ran monthly for just five episodes.
The first text adventure game featuring a licensed superhero was Questprobe featuring The Hulk, released in 1984. A similar game featuring Spider-Man followed, as did The Human Torch & The Thing. There were plans for 12 Marvel adventures, but developers Adventure International went bust before the series could be completed. Guinness World Records Gamers’ Edition 2009.
The earliest test on an aerial mock-target for a laser weapon occurred in November 1973, when a 100 kW carbon dioxide laser destroyed a 3.6-m (12-ft) airborne drone above the Sandia Optical Test Range of Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico, USA.
The first standard 3.5 inch drive to reach one terabyte in capacity was the Hitachi Deskstar 7k1000, which has a spin rate of 7,100 revolutions per minute. It was launched in 2007.The hard drive, first invented in 1956, has become the standard way of storing large amounts of data on a PC, and is where computer game software is usually kept.
The first theatre to be named after an actor was The Garrick Theatre in London, UK, which was opened in 1889 and named after the actor David Garrick (UK, 1717-1779).