FIREBIRD

CIRCA 1969 (Part IV) : SCIENCE FICTION NO MORE

The year we were born was a remarkable year which started the changes that defines our life today. It was in this year that humanity has made significant progress in science and medicine with the first successful implantation of an artificial heart in a human being by Dr. Denton Cooley and his surgical team at the Texas Heart Institute. Intended as a temporary measure, its goal was to keep a cardiac patient alive until a heart transplant could be performed. Likewise, the first human eye transplant was performed during this year. A milestone was made in the field of genetics with the isolation of a single gene by scientists at Harvard University and then an enzyme was synthesized for the first time that year. Also, an article was published about artificially fertilizing human eggs by English embryologist Robert Edwards, He would later help create the first in vitro fertilization process.

It was in the area of space exploration did we reap the most achievements during that year. The U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R., then its rival for world supremacy, showcased the most ambitious programs that we humans think of only as science fiction. The Soviets launched the Venera 5 , a spaceprobe, that landed on Venus early that year. However, it was the American’s Apollo Program ultimately caught the imagination of the world. On the 20th of July, 1969, the lunar module Eagle landed on the surface of the lunar surface. The world watched in awe as Neil Armstrong takes his first steps on the moon. Hence, in that year, The New York Times publicly takes back the ridicule of rocket scientist Robert H. Goddard published in 13 January 1920 that spaceflight is impossible.

The technological milestones of 1969 gave birth to the most essential amenities of today. The first Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) in the United States was installed in Rockville Centre, New York. Chemical Bank's ad campaign said: "On September 3, 1969, our branch will open its doors at 9:00 a.m. and we'll never close again!" Since then, our banking system will never be the same again.

The digital age was ushered in with the invention of various digital gadgets. On October 17, 1969, Willard S. Boyle and George Smith invented the CCD at Bell Laboratories. Now, this technology is widely used in digital cameras.

However, if there is more startling invention during that year, it was when the first message was sent over ARPANET, the forerunner of the internet. On November 21, 1969, the first ARPANET (the progenitor of the global Internet) link was established. The Internet, then known as ARPANET, was brought online in under a contract let by the renamed Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) which initially connected four major computers at universities in the southwestern US (UCLA, Stanford Research Institute, UCSB, and the University of Utah). The contract was carried out by BBN of Cambridge, MA under Bob Kahn and went online in December 1969. The rest is history!

The first Concorde test flight was conducted in Toulouse, France early in 1969. Later that year, on December 2, the Boeing 747 jumbo jet makes its maiden flight. It carries 191 people, most of them reporters and photographers, from Seattle, Washington to New York City. These revolutionized air travel altogether.

1969 was a marvelous year. The mere ideas and concepts throughout the ages became reality that year. Humanity has finally reaped the labor in science and technology that has been in work even before the advent of the 20th century. Truly, it was a year of progress. Because of the scientific breakthroughs, medical advancements and technological innovations that year our life today was altered forever.