Amaya Toman In today's installment of our regular series on significant milestones in the history of technology, we'll grind our way back to the eighteenth century, when Joseph Marie Jacquard, the inventor of the knotting machine and the jacquard device, was born. But we will also remember the first ever flight of a solar-powered aircraft.
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Joseph Jacquard is born (1752)
On July 7, 1752, Joseph Marie Jacquard was born in Lyon, France. From childhood, Jacquard had to help his father work on the silk loom, so he was no stranger to machines. As an adult, he worked as a weaver and mechanic in one of the French textile companies, but in addition to his work, he also devoted himself to the study and construction of textile machines. In 1803, Jacquard came up with the invention of the knotting machine, a little later he demonstrated improvements in the form of more advanced control of the machine during weaving. Jacquard was knighted in the French Legion of Honor in 1819, and his punch card was used in the earliest programmable computer in the year.
Flight of the first solar-powered aircraft (1981)
On July 7, 1981, the first solar-powered airplane took to the skies. Named Solar Challenger, it flew 163 miles from Corneille-en-Verin Airport, north of Paris, to Manston Royal, south of London. The machine stayed in the air for 5 hours and 23 minutes.
Other events not only in the field of technology
- Henry F. Phillips patented the Phillips screwdriver (1936)
