Was sorting the tube drawer and found a photo of a dish I once worked near, which got me onto Syncom 3 \u2014 a box about the size of a wastebasket, parked over the Pacific, holding still while the Earth turned under it. The opening ceremony in Tokyo went up to it and came down at Point Mugu in California, and somebody on that shift sat watching a meter, keeping the signal locked. That was 1964. There's a Ras al Khaima stamp from the following year with a satellite and solar panels floating over a blue globe, which is roughly how it felt to everyone who didn't have to hold the lock.
Wendell, the trick is the altitude — about 35,800 km up, an orbit takes exactly one day, so the thing just hangs there and the dish can be bolted down. Syncom 3 was the first one that actually sat still like that, and parking it over the dateline meant Tokyo and California could both see it at once.
Wendell, nine days before that ceremony the first Shinkansen ran Tokyo to Osaka — 1 October 1964, 210 km/h, and the timetable held from the first morning. So the pictures going up to Syncom and the trains going out of Tokyo Station both had somebody watching a dial to keep them honest.