On July 23 in …

1715 — The first lighthouse in America is authorized for construction at Little Brewster Island, MA.

1829 –- American inventor and surveyor William Austin Burt receives a U.S. patent for the typographer, a precursor to the typewriter. (In his lifetime he also is credited with inventing the first workable solar compass, a solar use surveying instrument, and the equatorial sextant, a precision navigational aid to determine with one observation the location of a ship at sea.)

1904 — The ice cream cone is introduced by Charles E. Menches during the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, MO.

1929 — Italian dictator Benito Mussolini’s Fascist government bans the use of foreign words.

1962 — The Telstar communications satellite relays the first publicly-transmitted, live trans-Atlantic television program. It features newscaster and program host Walter Cronkite.

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