From guided missiles to guided Ubers, this is the history of GPS: GPS was first invented to help the US catch up with the Soviets in the Cold War space race after the latter launched Sputnik 1, the first man-made object put in space, in 1957. US military scientists discovered that Sputnik’s frequency varied as it changed position. This led to the realization that positions of signal receivers on Earth can be ascertained using satellites — the basic idea of the Global Positioning System, or GPS. The US military, which initially kept the technology under wraps, began deploying GPS on a large scale in later wars, including the 1990 Gulf War. Today, civilian usage of GPS, valued at USD 34.9 bn, dwarfs that of the military, a mere USD 2.1 bn. Watch on Bloomberg, runtime: 5:17.