Dr. Bruce Reitz (USA) performed the first successful combined heart-lung transplant at Stanford Medical Center, Stanford, California, USA in 1981. The operation represented the culmination of more than two years of experiments.

In late 1993, two ‘artists turned naturalists’, William Lishman (USA) and Joseph Duff (USA), used two ultralight aircraft to guide 18 Canada Geese 644 km (400 mi) from Ontario, Canada, to Virginia, USA, in the first ever human-led bird migration. The flight was part of research to find out if birds could be ‘taught’ to follow safe migratory routes. A film based on Lishman and Duff’s work, Fly Away Home (Columbia Pictures), was made in 1996.

On 25 January 1979, Robert Williams (USA) was struck in the head and killed by the arm of a 1-ton production-line robot in a Ford Motor Company casting plant in Flat Rock, Michigan, USA, becoming the first fatal casualty of a robot. The robot was part of a parts-retrieval system that moved material from one part of the factory to another; when the robot began running slowly, Williams reportedly climbed into the storage rack to retrieve parts manually when he was struck in the head Continue reading →

The Barringer Meteorite Crater (also known as Meteor Crater), in Arizona, USA, is a hole in the ground measuring around 1.2 km (0.74 mile) wide and 173 m (570 ft) deep. It was first proposed to be the result of a meteorite impact in 1891 but was believed to be of volcanic origin by many geologists until US geologist Eugene Shoemaker compared the crater’s anatomy with that of craters produced by nuclear weapons testing in Nevada in 1963. Geologists now believe the iron meteorite that Continue reading →

Gary Payton (USA), playing for the Boston Celtics (USA), scored his 20,000th career point against the Portland Trailblazers (USA), on 10 November 2004, to become the only player in NBA history to record 20,000 points, 8,000 assists and 2,000 steals during a career.

The first independent artist to debut at #1 on the Billboard Hot R&B Singles Chart is Brandy Moss-Scott (USA), with her single ‘I Don’t Really Know’ on 22 June 2002.

The figure skating events at the Winter Olympic games were held in indoors for the first time in 1960 at the VII games held in Squaw Valley, California, USA. Prior to these games, all figure skating events were held outdoors.

The Ford Motor Company initiated the First Moving Assembly Line in the automobile industry in 1913 in Highland Park, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. Not only was Ford the first to implement this, it also marked the first truly advanced and mechanized assembly line in any modern industry, with the result that cars cost less and could be easily purchased by the American middle class. Although there had been the assembly of interchangeable parts of guns going back to the mid-19th Century, (rifles manufactured in Continue reading →

The telegraph system was the first form of instant communication. It was invented by Samuel Morse (USA). The first link, from Washington DC to Baltimore Maryland, USA, was completed by May 1844. The first message was sent by Morse himself and read ‘What Hath God Wrought!’. The arrangements of dots and dashes became known as Morse Code.

The first time that a laser weapon has successfully shot-down an operational rocket occurred when the US Army and the Israeli Ministry of Defence destoyed a Katyusha rocket carrying a live warhead, using the High Energy Laser/Advance Concept Technology Demonstrator (THEL/ACTD) – the world’s first high energy laser weapon system designed for such operational use – at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, USA on 7 June 2000.