Mary Shelley is born

August 30, 1797

ON this day, English writer Mary Shelley was born in London, England. She was married to poet Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1816. Two years later, she published her most famous horror novel, Frankenstein.

Later, the novel was adopted in several Hollywood horror movies. She wrote several other books, including Valperga (1823), The Last Man (1826), the autobiographical Lodore (1835) and the posthumously published Mathilde. Shelley died of brain cancer on February 1, 1851, in London, England.

First ATM opens in the US

Sep 2, 1969

ON this day, America’s first automatic teller machine (ATM) made its public debut, dispensing cash to customers at Chemical Bank in Rockville Centre, New York.

Several inventors worked on early versions of a cash-dispensing machine, but Don Wetzel, an executive at Docutel, a Dallas company that developed automated baggage-handling equipment, is generally credited as coming up with the idea for the modern ATM.

Titanic wreck captured on film

September 4, 1985

THIS day, the first pictures of the wreck of Titanic were released 73 years after the liner sank with the loss of 1,500 lives. The wreck was discovered by a joint American-French expedition lead by the explorer Dr Robert Ballard. The ship was lying at a depth of 2.5 miles (4 km) and was filmed by an unmanned submarine called Argo.