As members of the video game generation, we love the diversions we grew up with, but every once in a while we feel a little pang of jealousy that the baby boomers had such cool gadgets. Above is a good example—the Junior Secret Service Code-o-Graph field cipher, manufactured in 1945 by the Armme Company of Chicago, Illinois. Armme’s Code-o-Graph can create or unlock over a million different codes, and unlike a computer, it’s hack-proof, phish-proof and virus-proof, which means we feel pretty good about using it to store our most sensitive information—like the ingredients in that spice rub we worked out. It also comes with an identity card, below, in case you need to flash your credentials. But the Code-o-Graph isn’t perfect—we plugged some things our girlfriends said into it and the results came up the same every time: “Clean the toilet.” So we’re pretty sure it sometimes malfunctions.
1934—Arrest Made in Lindbergh Baby Case
Bruno Hauptmann is arrested for the kidnap and murder of Charles Lindbergh Jr., son of the famous American aviator. The infant child had been abducted from the Lindbergh home in March 1932, and found decomposed two months later in the woods nearby. He had suffered a fatal skull fracture. Hauptmann was tried, convicted, sentenced to death, and finally executed by electric chair in April 1936. He proclaimed his innocence to the end