On this night in science
The computer mouse is shown to the world
December 9, 1968
On this day in 1968, the inventor Douglas Engelbart sat at a desk on a stage in San Francisco and showed a room full of people a small box with a cord. As he moved it on the desk, a pointer moved on a big screen: it was the first time most of them had ever seen a computer mouse.
Why it mattered
In the same talk he showed ideas like video calls and clicking on links, years before most people had a computer at all.
Wonder together
If you could invent a new way to talk to a computer, how would it work?