US Intelligence Agencies Spying on Americans

"On December 11, 1976, during what would have been the final days of Richard Nixon's second term (Nixon resigned in August 1974), the Air Force launched the first digital satellite, the KH-11. At 3:15 p.m. on January 21, the day after Jimmy Carter's inauguration, the acting director of the CIA, Hank Knoche, met with Carter and his national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, in the Map Room of the White House. Knoche spread a handful of black-and-white photos across the table. They were the first live photos taken from space. They showed the president's inauguration ceremony." - Safi Bahcall Loonshots

I get that the inauguration was chosen for illustration purposes. It was an event Carter was intimately familiar with and so without much explanation showed the importance of the new spy satellite technology. I just find it amusing the the first use was to "spy" on a sitting president.

The more things change...

Churchill and Radar

"The British discovery of radar was due, in part, to public demands that their Air Ministry investigate the use of death-ray weapons. The most insistent requests came from a widely ignored former government official given to ranting about imagined future air attacks on London. His name was Winston Churchill." - Safi Bahcall Loonshots

Nokia and the Smartphone

"In 2004, a handful of excited Nokia engineers created a new kind of phone: Internet ready, with a big color touchscreen display and a high-resolution camera. They proposed another crazy idea to go along with the phone: an online app store. The leadership team - the same widely admired, cover-story leadership team - shot down both projects. Three years later, the engineers saw their crazy ideas materialize on a stage in San Francisco. Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone. Five years later, Nokia was irrelevant."  - Safi Bahcall Loonshots