Sputnik October 4, 1957

The graduating class of 2020 starts its best four years of their collective lives. This fall they get the urge to reproduce and hate their parents. It's not unusual, I did it at fourteen. Seven years later, my parents learned alot.

October 4, 1957 was a seminal day in American history. That was the date when we heard that beep from space on shortwave radio. The Russians had launched a satellite in Earth orbit. The space-race was on.

The inventions and innovations from that date support the technological world of today. Most of the support structure for our life today is grounded in the work of those guys called the Greatest Generation. Their progeny is known as "boomers".

Among these boomers were Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, the best known of the tech heroes. Savor, if you will, the irony of the history of our collective tech achievement. A Russian satellite called Sputnik.

It's impossible to pay attention to history when you are living in it. History is, by definition, what happened -- and you forgot to notice.

Or, when you are fourteen, there is that cute girl in English class...hmm