In 1985, the worlds most powerful computer was the Cray-2 which cost $35,000,000 ($35 million), and could not see, hear, or speak with its environment. Today, smartphones process data 10x faster and cost less than $1000.00, with the ability to see, hear, and interact with the end user (e.g Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana, Samsung’s Bixby etc.). In 1956, the International Business Machines Corporation’s best hard drive weighed 2000 lbs., was 5 megabytes in size, and cost $3000.00 per month which equates to $28,000 as of 2019 when accounting for inflation. In 2019, most solid state Universal Serial Bus drives possess 200x as much storage at a minimum and cost less than $5.00
Tag: 1956
How Funding for the Completion of the Statue of Liberty Was Raised
The Statue of Liberty was assembled and shipped from France as a gift to the United States of America. Construction started in July 1884 but parts did not arrive to the U.S. until June of 1885. The Statue of Liberty arrived in pieces and had to be constructed on Bedloe’s Island, United States of America which was renamed “Liberty Island” in 1956. Joseph Pulitzer, who owned the New York Times during this period announced that anybody who donated a penny or more to the project would have their name printed in the next issue of the New York Times. Thousands of people started donating to see their name listed in Pulitzer’s paper. The donations went towards the building of the base which the statue stands upon. The base was built by U.S. workers unlike the rest of the statue which was constructed by the French. One of the main engineers of the project was Gustave Eiffel, the same person who designed and built the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France. The 7 spikes on the statue’s crown represent the 7 seas and the 7 continents