On June 16, 1884, the first roller coaster in America opens at Coney Island, in Brooklyn, New York. Known as a switchback railway, it
was the brainchild of LaMarcus Thompson, traveled approximately
six miles per hour and cost a nickel to ride. The new entertainment
was an instant success and by the turn of the century there were hundreds of roller coasters around the country.

On June 14, 1951, the U.S. Census Bureau dedicated UNIVAC, the
world’s first commercially produced electronic digital computer.
UNIVAC, which stood for Universal Automatic Computer, was
developed by J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly, makers of
ENIAC, the first general-purpose electronic digital computer.

These giant computers, which used thousands of vacuum tubes
for computation, were the forerunners of today’s computers.

On June 8, 1948, a hand-built aluminum prototype labeled “No. 1″ became
the first vehicle to bear the name of one of the world’s leading luxury car
manufacturers: Porsche.

The Austrian automotive engineer Ferdinand Porsche debuted his
first design at the World’s Fair in Paris in 1900. The electric vehicle
set several Austrian land-speed records, reaching more than 35 mph
and earning international acclaim for the young engineer.

Ferdinand Porsche
(September 3, 1875 – January 30, 1951)

CAMILLE
BOHANNON

On May 30, 1911, Ray Harroun (above) dove his single-seater
Marmon Wasp to victory in the inaugural Indianapolis 500,
now one of the world’s most famous motor racing events.

The Indiana automobile dealer Carl Fisher first proposed
building a private auto testing facility in 1906, in order to
address car manufacturers’ inability to test potential top
speeds of new cars due to the poorly developed state of
the public roadways. The result, the Indianapolis Motor
Speedway, built on 328 acres of farmland five miles
northwest of downtown Indianapolis.

Ray Harroun (January 12, 1879 – January 19, 1968)

Harroun’s original Marmon “Wasp” on display at the Indianapolis
Motor Speedway Museum.