On This Day in Tech History

On June 27, 1995, Spyglass, a software company based in Illinois, went public by offering its shares for sale to the public for the first time. This means that Spyglass became a publicly traded company, allowing investors to buy and sell shares of the company on the stock market. Spyglass was known for its web browsing technology, which was used by Microsoft to create its Internet Explorer web browser. In fact, Spyglass received a significant amount of revenue from its licensing agreement with Microsoft.

On June 26, 1940, during World War II, the German military introduced a new version of the Enigma Machine, a cipher machine used to encrypt and decrypt secret messages. The Enigma was a highly complex device that used a system of rotating wheels to scramble letters and produce an apparently random code, which made it extremely difficult for the Allied powers to decipher German communications. Despite the challenges, the Allies were eventually able to break the Enigma code, thanks to the efforts of British mathematician Alan Turing and his team at Bletchley Park. Turing developed a machine called the Bombe, which was able to decipher the German messages encoded by the Enigma.

In 2008, NASA's Mars Phoenix spacecraft successfully landed on the surface of Mars. The mission was designed to study the polar region of Mars and to search for evidence of water and habitable conditions for microbial life. The Phoenix lander was equipped with a suite of scientific instruments, including a robotic arm that was used to dig into the Martian soil and analyze samples for the presence of water and other compounds. The mission was also able to confirm the presence of water ice on the surface of Mars. During its five-month mission, the Mars Phoenix spacecraft made numerous discoveries, including the detection of perchlorate, a type of salt that could potentially be used as a source of energy by microbial life forms. The mission also provided valuable information about the history and geology of Mars, and helped to pave the way for future exploration and potential colonization of the planet.

On June 27, 1967, the first operational ATM (automated teller machine) in the world was installed at a branch of Barclays Bank in Enfield, a suburb of London, UK. The machine was invented by John Shepherd-Barron, a Scottish engineer, who was inspired to create a self-service cash dispenser after being locked out of his bank on a Saturday afternoon. The original ATM used paper vouchers instead of plastic cards, and customers had to enter a personal identification number (PIN) to withdraw cash. The vouchers were later replaced by magnetic stripe cards in the 1970s, and then by chip cards and contactless payments in more recent years.