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Happy Valentine’s Day, a day that marks mid-February and one we associate with love and caring.
It also happens to be the date, in 1946, when the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer – or ENIAC – was introduced to the public as the first programmable, electronic, general-purpose digital computer. Exactly 42 years later, Texas Instruments patented its “micro on a chip,” better known as the first microchip.
In 1966, Wilt Chamberlain broke the NBA career scoring record at 20,884 points on Feb. 14. (LeBron James holds the record now, at 42,975 points and climbing.)
On Feb. 14, 1971, President Richard Nixon had a secret recording system installed in the Oval Office. Sixteen months later, five men broke into the Democratic National Committee headquarters. Two years later Nixon resigned from office.
And, in 2005, YouTube was launched on Feb. 14 by three former PayPal employees. Now owned by Google, it is the second-most visited site worldwide.
What happens today is going to be history tomorrow.
The world will learn of amazing human achievements, marvels and discoveries through journalists who — as former owner and publisher of The Washington Post Philip Graham is credited with saying — write “the first rough draft of history” by capturing, recording and reporting events as they happen.
We hope you have a lovely and loving Valentine’s Day and that you are enjoying this newsletter – with its contributions to the rough draft of history – and encourage you to share it with family members and friends. They can sign up on our website to have it delivered to their own inbox each Saturday.
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