The earliest networked 3D shooter was Maze War. Maze War is the ancestor of many online gaming concepts. Its earliest version was written by Steve Colley at the NASA Ames Research Centre in 1973. It first ran on an Imlac PDS-1 computer. By connecting two Imlacs together using their serial ports, Colley and colleagues were able to play the game multiplayer– the first computer game in the world to accomplish this.

Call of Duty: Real-Time Card Game is a collectable strategy card game based on the video game series. Set in World War II, it is the first officially licensed card game to be based on a first-person shooter.

During the Baird Company’s morning programme on 8 May 1931, scenes of Long Acre, London, were transmitted from a van parked by the kerb outside the television studio. Prior to this, all programmes had been made under powerful artifical lighting.

Carl Djerassi (US) developed the modern contraceptive pill as a young researcher working for Syntex Laboratories in Mexico City, in 1951. Born in pre-war Vienna, Djerassi fled the Nazis in 1938, arriving in New York aged 16 and penniless. After graduating from Kenyon College in Ohio, he obtained his Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin. Currently over 80 million women world-wide take an oral contraceptive. Djerassi was also part of a team that succeeded in isolating and synthesising one of the first antihistamines. The Pill Continue reading →

Richard Branson and Per Lindstrand crossed the Pacific in the Virgin Otsuka Pacific Flyer from the southern tip of Japan to Lac la Matre, Yukon, north-western Canada on January 15-17, 1991 in a 73,600 m 3 2.6 million ft³ balloon (the largest ever flown) to set FAI records for duration (46 hrs 15 mins) and distance (great circle 7671.9 km 4768 miles).

The earliest parallel universe in an MMORPG is EverQuest ll, which is not a sequel to EverQuest which was launched in 1999. Instead, it is a parallel universe set in the same world of Norrath, but 500 years into the future in the Age of Destiny. The original EverQuest is still running online and still releasing new expansions. The 14th expansion, Secrets of Faydwer, was due for release in November 2007.

The earliest recorded use of paper currency can be traced back to the Song dynasty (960-1279) in China when it was utilized by a group of wealthy merchants and businessmen in Sichuan, the same place where the art of printing was invented.   Each banknote issued had printed on it pictures of houses, trees and people in red and black ink. The seals of the issuing banks were then applied and confidential marks were made on each bill in order to prevent counterfeiting.   

French fashion designer Gabrielle (Coco) Chanel (1883-1971), whose name became synonymous with elegance and chic, launched her Chanel No. 5 perfume in 1921. Coco Chanel was ahead of her time. She was sharp, elegant and always avant-garde. The clothes she designed transformed the way women looked and how they looked at themselves. Infamous for the little black dress, she was born in Sanmur, Maine-et-Loire. She formed her company in 1909 and her first boutique was opened in Deauville, France in 1913. The house of Chanel Continue reading →

The first woman to fly faster than Mach 1 was a famous, female aviator named Jacqueline Cochran (USA). Better known as Jackie, Cochran was born in 1906 and became one of the pioneering women of aeronautics. She was a friend of Chuck Yeager, the first person to break the sound barrier. He helped her to make the transition to jet-powered aircraft, and she then soon achieved a number of new aviation records. On 18 May 1953, she flew an F-86 Sabre past Mach 1 becoming Continue reading →

The first person to reach the North pole, the South pole and the peak of Mount Everest – known as the Three Poles Challenge – was Erling Kagge (Norway), who completed the trio on 8 May 1994. On 8 May 1990, Kagge reached the North Pole with Børge Ousland (Norway). On 7 January 1993, he reached the South Polo solo. On 8 May 1994, he summited Mount Everest, again solo. The first and only person to complete the challenge without the use of oxygen on Continue reading →