The Great Geek Manual

1006
Supernova SN 1006, the brightest supernova in recorded history, in the southern constellation Lupus, near the star Beta Lupi. Chinese and Arabic astronomers note the supernova, but the speed of the still-expanding shock wave won’t be measured for nearly a millennium. It was also recorded by observers in Switzerland, Italy, Japan, Egypt, and Iraq. From the careful descriptions of the Chinese astronomers of how the light varies, the Supernova is apparently yellow in color and visible for over a year, possibly reaching a magnitude of up -9.

1665
Samuel Pepys makes his first diary reference to the Great Plague in London. “Great fears of the sicknesses here in the City, it being said that two or three houses are already shut up. God preserve us all.” The diary entries continue throughout the year, documenting the terrible conditions in the city as many thousands die, until Winter’s freezing cold reduces the number of fleas that spread the disease. The symptoms of the plague begin like those of a bad cold. A high fever follows, with vomiting and painful black swellings, called buboes appearing in the groin and under the armpits. His diaries will cover a period from January 1660 to May 1669. In them, he will also write about the Great Fire of London in 1666.

1796
The first US patent for a pill of any kind is issued to Samuel Lee, Jr., of Connecticut, for a “Composition of bilious pills” which he markets as “Lee’s Windham Pills.” The pills are highly popular for a long period. An 1803 advertisement for “Doctor Lee’s Patent New-London Bilious Pills” will describe them as “Interesting to all sea-faring People” and promise to cure a variety of ills, including “foul stomachs, where pukes are indicated.”

1878
Louis Pasteur lectures at the French Academy of Science in support of his germ theory of disease, in which he holds that many diseases are caused by tiny organisms. Pasteur also describes ways to prevent infection, and provides skeptics with an experiment with which to prove the theory to themselves.

1883
The Edison Electric Illuminating Co. is incorporated. It will later build the first US three-wire central station for incandescent lighting.

1897
At the Royal Institution Friday Evening Discourse, Joseph John Thomson first announces the existence of what will later be known as electrons. Thomson tells the audience that earlier in the year, he had made a surprising discovery. He had found a particle of matter a thousand times smaller than the atom. He calls it a corpuscle, meaning “small body.” Although Thomson is the director of the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge, and one of the most respected scientists in Great Britain, the scientists present find the news difficult to believe. They believe that the atom is the smallest and most indivisible part of matter that could exist. Nevertheless, the electron is historically the first elementary particle to be discovered.

1938
The cartoon short Porky’s Hare Hunt, debuts in movie theaters, introducing Bugs Bunny.

1939
Cosmic rays entering a Geiger-Mueller counter produce electrical impulses used to control electrical power. This first ever such event, is used for the illumination ceremony of the 1939 New York World’s Fair. The counter, at the Hayden Planetarium in New York City, switches on an electrical circuit wired to a display at the Lagoon of Nations where relays activate local battery circuits, ringing bells and flashing lights to signal each capture of a cosmic ray. Guest speaker Albert Einstein explains cosmic rays. Unfortunately, his accent and a faulty amplification system render his words incomprehensible to the crowd. Upon the tenth ray’s signal, a huge light is meant to be turned on to illuminate the 600 foot Trylon triangular spire, but the power source fails.

The RCA-owned NBC network launches regular public television service with the formal opening of the 1939 New York World’s Fair by President Franklin Roosevelt (the first of only two appearances he makes on television). The service will air two hours of programs a week, to be received on RCA sets, in order to “to make the art of television available to the public.” By the end of the year, a thousand receivers will be sold in the US. Screens are initially only about five inches across.

1955
The creation of the synthetically created element 101, is announced. It will later be named Mendelevium, after the historic chemist Dmitri Mendeleev, who is credited with creating the very first version of the periodic table of elements. The element was first synthesized by a team lead by Albert Ghiorso at the University of California, Berkeley.

1973
The first criminal trial using entirely pre-recorded videotape evidence, Ohio v. McMillion, is heard at the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas in Ohio.

Texas Instruments, Inc. (TI) splits their stock two-for one.

1982
New York Superior Court Judge Milton Feller declares a community ordinance in Garwood, New Jersey that requires video game players to be at least eighteen years old unconstitutional.

1987
Stephen “Woz” Wozniak files for a divorce from his second wife Candice Clark citing irreconcilable differences as the cause. He will receive custody of their children, Jese John, and Sara Nadine. Their third child, Stephen, will be born seven months later.

1990
The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Hollow Pursuits” first airs. (No. 169) In the episode, Lieutenant Barclay’s use of the holodeck as an escape interferes with his duties. Memory Alpha entry

Version 0.03 of the RemoteAccess Bulletin Board System (BBS) is released.

1992
In the first four months of the year, Microsoft has shipped ten million copies of Windows 3.0.

1993
Astronaut Hans Schlegel receives a test infusion while in orbit, aboard the space shuttle Columbia. The German physicist has saline solution warmed to body temperature pumped into him through a needle. The experiment provides a way to address dehydration and other common health issues associated with space travel, such as puffy faces and skinny legs.

The World Wide Web is born when the directors of CERN release the source code of World Wide Web into the public domain, making it freely available to anyone, without licensing fees. The decision to make their products freely available, which is very much in line with the decisions of the earlier Internet pioneers, is possibly the most important moment in the history of the Internet. Several versions of the software are still available to download from evolt.org’s browser archive.

1995
The National Science Foundation (NSF) no longer allows direct access to the NSF backbone. The NSF has contracted with four companies that will be providers of access to its backbone. These companies will sell connections to groups, organizations, and companies. Visit the official NSF website.

1996
Blizzard Entertainment releases Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, an expansion pack for the real-time strategy game WarCraft II.

The Consumer Electronics Manufacturers Association (CEMA) issues a correction to figures released the day prior. Due to an error made by a CEMA representative while referring to a table of sales figures, the number of television sales for the first quarter were cited as 660,000. The correct number, however, is 4.6 million, far more than the number of personal computers sold during the same period.

1997
Power Computing begins shipping the PowerCenter Pro line for the Mac OS. The systems feature 180 to 210MHz PowerPC 604e processors, 16X CD-ROM drives. Price: US$2,095

The Star Trek: Voyager episode “Distant Origin” first airs. (No. 323) In the episode, the crew encounter the Voth, an advanced race who, according to the “Distant Origin” theory of one their archaeologists, evolved from the dinosaurs of Earth. The Voth elders take the archaeologist, Gegen, into custody and put him on trial for heresy, forcing him recant his theory. Memory Alpha entry

1998
Next Generation Online reveals that Bernie Stolar, Sega of America President and Chief Operating Officer (COO), is personally demonstrating Sega’s new Katana game system to East Coast companies.

1999
Bleem, LLC announces having defeated a second attempt by Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) to levy a Temporary Restraining Order against them for the release of the Personal Computer-based PlayStation emulator BLEEM!.

2001
Imagine Media announces that it is closing down its online operations, including its online ad network, the Maximum PC Network, and Daily Radar (www.dailyradar.com), a popular online gaming publication similar to GameSpot and GameSpy. When the Daily Radar was shut down, a notice is left on the website stating, “The internet soufflé has collapsed (you probably read about it in the news), and Daily Radar is no longer publishing.” The notice was accompanied by a humor list of reason why the site was shut down. While Daily Radar was a popular review site, it was often the subject of controversy and criticism, as evidence by its frequently lampooning in the Penny Arcade webcomic.

2002
Indiana State University (ISU) inadvertently posts personal information about ten thousand students who were enrolled in the 1996-97 school year on the Internet, including their names and social security numbers. The information will remain online for two weeks, from April 30 to May 14. The incident was not the result of hacking, and, according to later interviews, no one was disciplined for the mistake, though it does make national headlines.

2003
The Star Trek: Enterprise episode “Cogenitor” first airs. (No. 222) In the episode, the crew of the Enterprise encounters the Vissians, a more technologically advanced species, and Trip finds himself transfixed on the fact the Vissians are a three-sexed species, befriending one of them with tragic results. Memory Alpha entry

2004
The Sasser worm begins spreading in the wild. Sasser is a computer worm that affects computers running Windows XP or Windows 2000. On May 7, Sven Jaschan, an eighteen year-old German computer science student from Rotenburg, Lower Saxony will be arrested for writing the worm.

2005
In Seattle, Washington, Nintendo holds the final competitions of its month-long Pokémon Emerald contest, with top players from the Canada and the US. The winner of the competition will be Chris Darling.

2006
Version 4.10 of the popular Linux distribution Ubuntu, code-named “Warty Warthog” is released. Visit the official Ubuntu website.

2008
HP Labs announces the creation of the memristor, which will be described as the fourth basic electronic element, after the capacitor, inductor, and resistor. Memristors are a class of passive two-terminal circuit elements that maintain a functional relationship between the time integrals of current and voltage. The memristor was first conceived in 1971 by Leon Chua. The discovery will have a tremendous impact on electronic engineering.