On this day in 1874, the great Harry Houdini was born. One of his most famous illusions was the ‘East Indian Needle trick’ where he appeared to swallow 100 threaded needles, then regurgitate them for the crowd to see.
On this day in 1981, the Sinclair ZX81 launched: a low-cost introduction to home computing. Limited only by 64 × 48 pixels, imaginary worlds were created and explored by 1.5 million users.