This day in music history.

June 21, 1832, Theobald Boehm unveils his "ring key" system he has developed for the flute. Flutes before that were shaped like cones, with eight finger holes and two keys.(more like recorders than flutes) As a boy Boehm made his own flute and taught himself to play. He quickly became proficient enough to play in an orchestra at the age of eighteen and at twenty-one he was first flute in the Royal Bavarian Orchestra.