October 18, 1954: The Transistor Radio

October 18 is a great anniversary:

1753: Joseph Bloomfield, Revolutionary War General, early Governor of New Jersey, and namesake of my original hometown, was born.

1859: John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry, Virginia (now in West Virginia).

1867: The Alaska Purchase is finalized.

1898: America took possession of Puerto Rico.

1918: Czechoslovakia declared independence.

1919: Pierre Trudeau, longtime Prime Minister of Canada and father of the current Prime Minister, was born.

1922: The British Broadcasting Corporation (the BBC) begins radio broadcasting.

1924: Two of the most famous games in college football history are played. Notre Dame beats Army at the Polo Grounds thanks to their backfield, "The Four Horsemen." And the University of Illinois dedicates its Memorial Stadium with 6 touchdowns by Red Grange in a win over Michigan.

1926: Rock and roll pioneer Chuck Berry was born.

1928: The great sportscaster Keith Jackson was born.

1933: Forrest Gregg, the Green Bay Packer offensive tackle that Vince Lombardi called "the finest player I ever coached," was born.

1939: Chicago Bears legend, as player and as coach, Mike Ditka was born. (Unfortunately, also born on this day was Lee Harvey Oswald.)

1940: Cynthia Weil, who wrote a bunch of hit rock and roll songs with her husband, Barry Mann, was born.

1941: The film The Maltese Falcon premiered.

1953: Willie Thrower, aptly-named, became the 1st black quarterback in the NFL, for the Bears. They lost to the San Francisco 49ers, anyway.

1954: Mort Walker and Dik Browne debuted the comic strip Hi & Lois. Separately, Walker created Beetle Bailey (Lois Flagston was Beetle's sister), and Browne created Hagar the Horrible.

1955: The Community War Memorial Arena opened in Rochester, New York. It is now known as the Blue Cross Arena at the War Memorial. And the Winnipeg Arena opened. It was demolished in 2006.

1956: Tennis legend Martina Navrátilová was born.

1958: Boxing champion Thomas Hearns was born. So was New York Attorney General Letitia James.

1959: Radio sports-talk host Chris "Mad Dog" Russo was born.

1961: The film version of West Side Story premiered.

1968: Bob Beamon wins the long jump at the Olympics, with a record of 29 feet, 2 1/2 inches.

1977: Reggie Jackson hits 3 home runs in Game 6 of the World Series, and the Yankees win the Series over the Los Angeles Dodgers.

1984: Gold Medal-winning American skier Lindsey Vonn is born.

1990: Basketball star Brittney Griner is born.

1999: The Yankees beat the Boston Red Sox in Game 5 of the American League Championship Series at Fenway Park, and win the Pennant.

2007: The football team at Rutgers University beat the University of South Florida, then ranked Number 2.

But one particular milestone stands out, and you have almost certainly enjoyed its effects:

October 18, 1954, 70 years ago: Texas Instruments announces it has begun production of the 1st transistor radio, the Regency TR-1. Baseball fans everywhere rejoice, for now they can listen to ballgames almost anywhere, from the office to the beach.

Well, they'll have to wait until April 1955 to listen to them, and until Summer 1955 to listen to them on the beach. Maybe they can listen on the beach in April 1955, if they live in California and can get Pacific Coast League broadcasts.

December 23, 1947: Bell Labs Invents the Transistor

The 1st working transistor. Yes, it has been preserved.

December 23, 1947, 75 years ago: Bell Telephone Laboratories, or Bell Labs for short, announces the invention of the transistor at its headquarters at Murray Hill, in the Township of Berkeley Heights, Union County, New Jersey.

According to Wikipedia:

A transistor is a semiconductor device used to amplify or switch electrical signals and power. The transistor is one of the basic building blocks of modern electronics. It is composed of semiconductor material, usually with at least three terminals for connection to an electronic circuit. A voltage or current applied to one pair of the transistor's terminals controls the current through another pair of terminals. Because the controlled (output) power can be higher than the controlling (input) power, a transistor can amplify a signal. Some transistors are packaged individually, but many more are found embedded in integrated circuits...

The first working device to be built was a point-contact transistor invented in 1947 by American physicists John Bardeen and Walter Brattain while working under William Shockley at Bell Labs. The three shared the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics for their achievement...

Transistors revolutionized the field of electronics, and paved the way for smaller and cheaper radios, calculators, and computers, among other things.

Left to right: John Bardeen, William Shockley, Walter Brattain

In 1963, Shockley went west, teaching at Stanford University between San Francisco and San Jose, leading to the region being known as Silicon Valley, for the element used in most transistors. Sadly, he also began to use his brilliant mind to pass off twisted theories of eugenics. He argued that black people were genetically inferior to white people, and that no amount of social assistance from government would make any difference.

In 1981, a science writer for the Atlanta Constitution compared Shockley's beliefs with those of the Nazis. Shockley sued for libel. He won the case, and was awarded one dollar in damages. In other words, the damage done was to his ego, for he had already damaged his own reputation with his statements. He died in 1989.

Nevertheless, we owe these 3 men a great deal, for all the technology that transistors have made possible -- including the transistor radios on which we've listened to sporting events and the Top 40 songs.

Bardeen won a 2nd Nobel Prize in 1972, with Leon Cooper and John R. Schrieffer, for a fundamental theory of conventional superconductivity. He lived until 1991. Brattain died in 1987.

The court-ordered breakup of AT&T led to the 2007 loss of Bell Labs to the company. The Labs are now run by a competitor, Japanese company Nokia.