The Rocket Belt

Hedy Lamarr, Hollywood actress, is known for more than her acting—she invented a signal-hopping technology used in Wi-Fi.

On October 29, 1969, Stanford programmer Bill Duvall sent a single-word message—"login"—to UCLA student programmer Charley Kline, 350 miles away. Transmitted between two computers that each filled an entire room, this message marked the first communication between networked computers and is widely regarded as the birth of the internet.

Grace Hopper, pioneer of computer science, lived in Virginia later in life and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Many everyday tools—from zippers to Super Glue to computers—originated as military inventions.