Five feminists create the first women’s owned-and-operated record label, Olivia Records
Olivia Records was a collective founded in 1973 to record and market women’s music.
Business
Motorola employee Martin Cooper makes the world’s first cell phone call
Using a prototype of what would become the Motorola DynaTAC 8000x, the world’s first commercial cell phone, Cooper placed a call to the headquarters of Bell Labs in New Jersey.
Atari releases Pong, the first commercially successful video game
Pong quickly became a success and was the first commercially successful video game, which helped to establish the video game industry along with the first home console, the Magnavox Odyssey.
World’s first plastic recycling mill opens in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania
By the 1980s, plastic recycling was widely practiced in many communities across the United States.
Daryl Chapin, Calvin Fuller, and Gerald Pearson at Bell Labs invent the silicon photovoltaic cell, a major breakthrough for solar power
Many argue that this event marks the true invention of PV technology because it was the first instance of a solar technology that could actually power an electric device for several hours of a day.
B.F. Goodrich Co. announces development of tubeless tire
On this day in 1947, the B.F. Goodrich Company of Akron, Ohio, announces it has developed a tubeless tire, a technological innovation that would make automobiles safer and more efficient.
DuPont invents nylon, the world’s first commercially viable synthetic textile
Nylon was first used commercially in a nylon-bristled toothbrush in 1938, followed more famously in women’s stockings or “nylons” which were shown at the 1939 New York World’s Fair and first sold commercially in 1940.
Ford Motor Company institutes world’s first moving assembly line for the Model T
The assembly line, driven by conveyor belts, reduced production time for a Model T to just 93 minutes by dividing the process into 45 steps.
Clara Abbott of Abbott Laboratories becomes perhaps the first women ever to serve on a corporate board
She served on the board of Abbott Laboratories from 1900 to 1908 and from 1911 to 1924 before the company was publicly listed, blazing a trail for female business leaders for decades to come.
Thomas Edison establishes the world’s first commercial power plant
Pearl Street Station located in Manhattan and established by Thomas Edison’s Edison Illuminating began with six 100 kW dynamos, and it started generating electricity on September 4, 1882, serving an initial load of 400 lamps to 82 customers. By 1884, Pearl Street Station was serving 508 customers with 10,164 lamps. The station burned down in 1890. It was rebuilt, and ran till 1895, when it was decommissioned, since larger and more efficient plants had been built nearby.