Motorola introduced a new mobile phone on this date in 1996: the Motorola StarTAC, a clamshell-style model (above). It was the first “flip” cellphone, and it was popular: more than sixty million were sold over the next few years.

When it was introduced, the price was $1000 per phone. It was also around this time that mobile phone makers and service carriers introduced the concept of selling the phones at a discounted price or for free in exchange for user subscription commitments.

The StarTac replaced Motorola’s almost-as-popular MicroTAC, which had a piece fold over the keypad in a style that reminded many users (well, me, certainly) of the “Communicators” seen in use in episodes of Star Trek. The StarTAC folded in half and the earpiece and mouthpiece were separated in the two halves. Flip phones dominated the mobile phone market over the subsequent fifteen years.
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The writer Isaac Asimov, who wrote, edited, and compiled more than 500 books in his lifetime, celebrated January 2, 1920, as his birthdate. He was born near Smolensk, Russia, towards the end of 1919 or very beginning of 1920; the record of his birth was either lost or forgotten when the family emigrated to the US in 1923. He himself celebrated today as his birthday. He died in 1992.

He wrote novels (I, Robot) and many, many semi-encyclopedic works of nonfiction. In public libraries, his titles are found in nine of the ten top-level categories that make up the Dewey Decimal System. The ten categories are: 000–Generalities; 100–Philosophy; 200–Religion; 300–Social Sciences; 400–Languages; 500–Pure Sciences; 600–Applied Sciences & Technology; 700–Arts; 800–Literature. The only category without an Asimov title is (after the jump):
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Amazing grace! (how sweet the sound)
That sav’d a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.

An Anglican clergyman named John Newton wrote the hymn titled “Faith’s Review and Expectation” late in 1772, and he introduced the hymn in a New Year’s Day service in his parish in Olney, Buckinghamshire, on this date in 1773. The hymn became best known by the two-word exclamation that opens it: “Amazing grace!”

It was not yet attached to any music. Newton and a poet friend named William Cowper collaborated on many hymns for the Olney parish, and in 1779 the two published a collection titled Olney Hymns. (The page with “Amazing Grace” is seen at top.) The book was not a bestseller, but over time it became popular in America during the Second Great Awakening in the 1830s: at least 37 editions were published in America by 1836.
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