Today in History: 1973 - A Motorola engineer makes the first known call from a handheld cell phone.
The 2.2-pound brick-size device, called the DynaTAC, wouldn’t become commercially available for another decade, when it carried a price tag of about $4,000.
The real stimulus for making that phone call in 1973 was the desire to make the world understand that they were ready for personal communications, for having a device that was a part of the extension of you that made you reachable everywhere.
We met in front of the New York Hilton on 6th Avenue. We’re strolling along and I was explaining how this telephone works and, of course, you have to demonstrate a functional device. I decided on the spur of the moment, I really didn’t plan it, to call Joel Engel who was my counterpart at the Bell System. I reached in my pocket and took out my phone book. This will give you an idea of what the technology was like in 1973, called Joel’s Office. Amazingly enough, Joel answered the phone and I said, “Hi, Joel, this is Marty Cooper.” He said, “Hi Marty.” I said, “Joel, I’m calling you on a cell phone. On a real cell phone, a personal, handheld, portable cellphone.” Silence on the other end of it, I thought I could hear his teeth gritting. To this day, Joel does not remember that phone call, and John, I don’t blame him.
Also on this day:
419 Etalius ends his reign as Catholic Pope
1043 Edward the Confessor crowned King of England
1645 English Long Parliament passes the Self-Denying Ordinance, limiting regional armies, significant step toward New Model Army
1721 Robert Walpole becomes Britain’s 1st Lord of the Treasury - effective Prime Minister, although that term was never officially used (indeed, it was considered an insult) until much later
1856 Palace of the Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes badly damaged by gunpowder explosion, kills 4,000 on island of Rhodes
1860 Start of the Pony Express, delivers mail by horse and rider relay teams between St Joseph, Missouri and Sacramento, California
1868 A Hawaiian surfs on highest wave ever - a 50-foot tidal wave
1882 American outlaw Jesse James is shot in the back of the head and killed by fellow gang member Robert Ford at home in St. Joseph, Missouri
1917 Vladimir Lenin arrives in Petrograd, returning to Russia from exile in Switzerland
1922 Joseph Stalin is appointed General Secretary of the Russian Communist Party by an ailing Vladimir Lenin
1926 Second flight of a liquid-fueled rocket by Robert Goddard
1933 Then longest North American hockey game requires a 1:44:46 overtime as Maple Leaf Ken Doraty scores to beat Canadiens 1-0
1940 Soviet troops massacre ~22,000 Polish nationals around Katyn
1941 British Prime Minister Winston Churchill warns Soviet leader Joseph Stalin that a German invasion is imminent
1944 British dive bombers attack German battleship Tirpitz at Kåfjorden, Norway
1948 US President Harry Truman signs the Marshall Plan to rebuild war-torn Western Europe after World War II, granting an initial $5 billion in aid to 16 European countries
1958 Fidel Castro’s rebels attack Havana
1973 1st mobile phone call is made in downtown Manhattan, NYC by Motorola employee Martin Cooper to the Bell Labs headquarters in New Jersey
1982 UN Security Council demanded Argentina withdraw from Falkland Islands
2007 Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards denies saying he smoked his father’s ashes in an interview with NME
2010 Matt Smith’s first appearance as the 11th Doctor with Karen Gillan as his companion in BBC program “Doctor Who” during “The Eleventh Hour” episode
2020 US aircraft carrier captain Brett Crozier cheered off his ship after being fired for a letter demanding more help for his sailors infected with COVID-19
2022 The Taliban government bans cultivation of opium in Afghanistan, with consequences for world supply as it produces 80%
2023 NASA announces the four astronauts for 2024 Artemis II lunar mission around the Moon - Christina Hammock Koch, Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen
Births
1973 Jamie Bamber - English actor (Battlestar Galactica, Strike Back), born in Hammersmith, London
1971 Picabo Street - American skier (Olympic gold 1994), born in Triumph, Idaho
1958 Alec Baldwin - American Emmy Award-winning actor (Knots Landing; Beetlejuice; Glengarry Glen Ross; SNL; 30 Rock), born in Amityville, New York
1924 Marlon Brando - American actor (The Godfather, A Streetcar Named Desire; On the Waterfront), born in Omaha, Nebraska (d. 2004)
1922 Doris Day - American singer, animal welfare activist and actress known as the “girl next door” actress (Pillow Talk, The Man Who Knew Too Much), born in Cincinnati, Ohio (d. 2019)
Deaths
1999 Lionel Bart - English pop and theatrical music composer (Oliver), and writer, dies of liver cancer at 68
1991 Graham Greene - English novelist (Brighton Rock, Our man in Havana, The Power and the Glory) and journalist, dies of leukemia at 86
1966 Battista Farina - Italian automobile designer and founder of Pininfarina company, dies at 72
1882 Jesse James - American outlaw and son of a clergyman, shot dead at 34 by fellow gang member Robert Ford in St. Joseph, Missouri
1862 James Clark Ross - British Royal Navy explorer (British Antarctic), dies at 61
The Funnies:
Recipe of the day: Sabre Tooth Tiger Smoothie
Ingredients
1 medium banana
1/2 Lebanese cucumber
1/2 medium mango, skin removed
1/2 cup strawberries, hulled, halved
1 bunch baby spinach
1 1/2 cup coconut water
1 tbs natural almonds
2 tsp chia seeds
Method
Step 1 of 2
Place banana, cucumber, mango, strawberries, spinach leaves, almonds, chia seeds and coconut water into a blender and blend until smooth
Step 2 of 2
Pour into tall glasses and serve
Quote of the Day:
“A good farmer is nothing more nor less than a handy man with a sense of humus.” E. B. White
Video of the Day:
Comic of the Day:
Mouseover: “If you have an old phone in a drawer, and you listen very carefully, you can occasionally hear the occasional tap of an emitted SIM card hitting the side of the drawer as the phone transmutes to a lower-end model.”
Credit: XKCD
Inspirobot Always Controversial, Occasionally Inspirational Quote of the Day:
Plant based what?
Read @dailyllama’s toothy Spark! from yesterday here. https://community.spiceworks.com/t/spark-pro-series-2nd-april-2025
Don’t forget to leave some spice right here ↓
