The Great Geek Manual

648 B.C.
The first know record of a total solar eclipse is made by the Greeks.

1869
Celluloid becomes the first plastic to be patented. Read more about the history of plastic.

1876
The American Chemical Society is founded by a group of thirty-five chemists who meet at the University Building of New York University. Visit the official American Chemical Society website.

1889
George Eastman releases the first Kodak Camera to stores.

1906
First animated cartoon film, Humorous Phases of Funny Faces, by J. Stuart Blackton, is copyrighted in the US. Despite the film’s rough use of simple animated chalkboard drawings, it is a revolutionary achievement. Watch Humorous Phases of Funny Faces in your browser at Wikipedia. Read more about the history of Animation at Animated Divots. IMDB listing Running Time: 3 mins

1925
Imperial Airways becomes the first airline to show a film on a scheduled flight. The first film shown is First National’s classic silent film, The Lost World. IMDB listing

1930
Executive James Dewar of Hostess invents Twinkies, small shortcake treats filled with banana cream filling. Visit the official Twinkie website.

1931
Experimental television station W2XCD of Passaic, New Jersey, operated by the De Forest Radio Corporation, broadcasts the first of six daily installments of the full-length feature film Police Patrol. It is the first full-length film to be broadcast by a television station.

The Little Orphan Annie radio series premieres on WGN in Chicago, sponsored by Ovaltine. The show will eventually graduate to a national audience on the NBC Blue Network. The fifteen minute episodes air six days a week at 5:45pm. It will grow in popularity until October 30, 1936, when Shirley Bell Cole, who played the part of Annie, quit the show over a contract dispute.

1936
Universal Pictures releases the first of thirteen episodes of the science fiction serial Flash Gordon, directed by Frederick Stephani and starring Buster Crabbe, Jean Rogers, Charles Middleton, Priscilla Lawson, and Frank Shannon, to US theaters. The serial was produced on a budget of US$350,000. IMDB listing Running Time: 4 hrs 5 mins

1938
Du Pont researcher Roy J. Plunkett discovers Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), later renamed Teflon. Plunkett and his lab assistant Jack Rebok were researching the chemical reactions of the gas perfluoroethylene when he discovered an apparently defective cylinder of the gas with the same weight as the other full cylinders. Inside the cylinder, they discovered a slippery white powder with unusual chemical properties, such as being an exceptional dry lubricant and having a very high melting point, PTFE. Visit the official Teflon website.

1953
Universal Pictures releases the science fiction comedy film Abbott and Costello Go To Mars, directed by Charles Lamont and starring Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Mari Blanchard, and Dudley Dickerson, is released to US theaters. The film was produced on a budget of US$762,000. IMDB listing Running Time: 1 hr 17 mins

1954
Swanson & Sons puts the first TV Dinner on sale. Visit the official Swanson TV Dinner website.

1955
The New York Times publishes a page-length column reporting the discovery of Carnegie Institute astronomers Bernard F. Burke and Kenneth L. Franklin that the planet Jupiter emits radio waves resembling short bursts of static like those which interfere with radios during lightning storms. It is the first time that radio waves have ever been detected emanating from any planet within the solar system. The discover was announced at the semi-annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Princeton, New Jersey.

1965
Intelsat 1 (Early Bird), the first commercial communications satellite to be placed into a geostationary orbit is launched from Cape Canaveral, following the Russian’s earlier launch of the “WORM” test satellite. Visit the official Early Bird website.

1967
The Star Trek episode “The City on the Edge of Forever” first airs. (No. 28) In it, the Enterprise discover a portal that leads to other places in time, and McCoy accidentally enters and alters Earth history. Kirk and Spock follow him in order to stop the Nazis from winning World War II. The first draft of the episode was written by acclaimed author Harlan Ellison, who receives credit, however, the screenplay was edited several times before being finalized. Memory Alpha entry

1968
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer releases the science fiction film 2001: A Space Odyssey, directed by Stanley Kubrick and starring Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester, Daniel Richter, Leonard Rossiter, and Douglas Rain, is released to US theaters, four days after its April 3rd premiere at the Uptown Theatre in Washington, D.C. It will be nominated for four Academy Awards and win one for Best Visual Effects. Produced on a budget of US$12 million, the film based on the Arthur C. Clarke novel 2001: A Space Odyssey. IMDB listing MPAA Rating: G Running Time: 2 hrs 19 mins

1969
The final episode the science fiction Western The Wild Wild West, “The Night of the Plague,” airs on CBS, after four seasons and 104 episodes. The series follows two Secret Service agents through the old west as they foil the schemes of madmen using a wide array of unlikely gizmos. The series is notable among geeks for its gratuitous use of gadgets. TV.com entry

1973
NASA launches the Pioneer 11 spacecraft on a mission to investigate the planets Jupiter and Saturn. Unlike Pioneer 10, which only explored Jupiter, Pioneer 11 will use Jupiter’s mass as a gravitational slingshot to alter its trajectory to a path towards Saturn. On September 1, 1979, Pioneer 11 will become the first space probe to perform a flyby of Saturn, passing within 21,000km of the planet’s cloud tops. Visit the official Pioneer Project website.

1987
The anime series City Hunter premieres on Animax and Yomiuri TV in Japan. It will run for four season and a total of 140 episodes.

1990
Tecmo releases Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in Japan.

1992
At the Comdex/Windows World conference held in Chicago, Illinois the Microsoft Corporation introduces the Windows 3.1 operating system, which provides IBM and IBM-compatible computers a graphical user interface (GUI). Windows 3.1 features improved support for CD Audio, MIDI, modems with speed up to 9600bps, sound cards, and Super VGA monitors. The operating system abandons “Real Mode,” a vestigial environment dating back to the Intel 8086 processors. It introduces scalable TrueType fonts and the Control-Alt-Delete command (also known as the “three finger salute”), and it refines the object Linking and embedding (OLE) concept, allowing users to cut and paste data and objects between applications. In total, the software is comprised of over three million lines of code. Price: US$149.00

Konami releases the run and gun Contra III: The Alien Wars for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) in North America. Visit the official Contra 3 website. ESRB: E (Everyone)

1993
The explosion of a radioactive waste tank at the Siberian Group of Chemical Enterprises military research facility at Tomsk-7 releases an enormous radioactive cloud over Russia 1,700 miles east of Moscow. It is the worst nuclear accident in the country since the incident at Chernobyl in April 1986. Read more about Tomsk-7 at the Global Security website.

1994
Namco releases Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES).

1997
Sony Computer Entertainment of America (SCEA) releases the racing game 2 Xtreme for the PlayStation in Europe.

1998
BBC Books publishes the science fiction novel The Hollow Men by Martin Day and Keith Topping. (ISBN 0-563-40582-1) It features the seventh Doctor. Outpost Gallifrey entry Length: 288 pages

Jasc Software releases version 5.0 of Corel Paint Shop Pro for Windows. This version features several improvements in its user interface and, for the first time, support for layers. As the lack of an ability to work with layers was the application’s major disadvantage in the graphical editing software market, version 5.0 is a major advance. Visit the official Paint Shop Pro website.

1999
Del Rey releases the fantasy novel Enchantment by Orson Scott Card as a hardcover. (ISBN-13: 978-0345416872) It is the story of a Ukraine-born, American graduate student who is transported to the ninth century to take on the role of the prince in a Russian version of Sleeping Beauty. Visit the author’s official website. Length: 400 pages

International Business Machines (IBM) introduces the RS/6000 Model H70 as the world’s fastest 64-bit, four-way web server. The server, designed to host ecommerce sites, bench tests at 11,774 hits per second. Visit the official IBM website.

2000
United States District Court Judge Edward Johnstone dismisses a US$33 million dollar lawsuit brought by the families of three girls killed in a 1997 school shooting against several media corporations, ruling that Michael Carneal’s actions at Heath High School in Paducah, Kentucky were unforeeable and that product liability law doesn’t apply to the ideas contained in media such as films and video games. The prosecution contended that exposure to films such as The Basketball Diaries, games such as Doom, Mortal Kombat, and Quake, and pornography were, in part, to blame for the Heath High School shootings.

2001
The ezine uber.nu credits Adam Mathes with coining the term “Google Bombing” in an article in which Mathes recounts the way in which he connected the search term “talentless hack” to the website of Andy Pressman. However it is widely known that Archimedes Plutonium coined the phrase “search engine bombing” on Usenet as early as 1997.

Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) releases the third-person shooter C-12: Final Resistance in PAL regions.

THQ releases Summoner for the PlayStation 2 in Europe. Visit the game’s official website.

The United States Department of Commerce announces its intent to transfer the management of .edu domains from VeriSign to Educause. Under the new arrangement, community colleges will now be able to officially register .edu addresses. Visit the official Educause website.

Version 7.0 of the Ghost is released. Ghost is a disk cloning utility, originally produced by Binary Research and purchased by Symantec in 1998. The name Ghost originated as an acronym for “General Hardware-Oriented Software Transfer”. Version 7.0 is marketed as “Norton Ghost 2002 Personal Edition”. Visit the official Ghost website.

2002
Tor Books releases the fantasy novel A Sorcerer’s Treason: A Novel of Isavalta by Sarah Zettel as a hardcover. (ISBN-13: 978-0312874414) It is the first book in the Isavalta series. Visit the author’s official website. Length: 528 pages

Version 0.2 of the Camino open source web browser is released. Visit the official Camino website.

2003
Namco releases the survival horror game Splatterhouse for the TurboGrafx-16 in Japan.

2004
DAW Books publishes the fantasy novel Smoke and Shadows by Tanya Huff as a hardcover. (ISBN-13: 978-0756401832) It is the first book in the Smoke and Shadows trilogy. Length: 400 pages

Midway Games, a leading video game publisher, acquires Surreal Software, a video game developer in Seattle, Washington. Visit the official Midway Games website. Visit the official Surreal Software website.

2005
Grey Ghost Press releases the roleplaying game system Fudge under an Open Gaming License (OGL). “FUDGE” was originally an acronym for “Freeform Universal Donated (later Do-it-yourself) Gaming Engine.” Visit the official Fudge website.

Hitachi announces that it has successfully increased the data density of harddrives to 230GB per square inch using a technology called perpendicular recording. The breakthrough has the potential to lead to one-inch 20GB and three and a half inch 1TB drives by the year 2007. Perpendicular recording aligns data bits ninety degrees to the plane of the recording medium. Read more at Electronics Weekly.

2006
According to Twin Galaxies, Abdner Ashman scores 933,580 playing Ms. Pac-Man at the Apollo Amusements arcade in Pompano Beach, Florida. Visit the official Twin Galaxies website.

Apple Computer creates Braeburn Capital in Reno, Nevada to manage its assets and to avoid some California state taxes. The name Braeburn is a variety of apple. Visit the official website of Apple Computer.

Bandai releases Eureka 7 V.1: New Wave for the PlayStation Portable (PSP) in Japan. CERO: A (All ages)

Electronic Arts releases the first-person shooter (FPS) Black for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox in Japan. Visit the official Black website. CERO: C (Ages 15 and up)

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire closes, after a twenty-week run in theaters. The film had an opening day of US$40 million, the film set numerous records, including one for the highest non-May opening weekend in the US and another for the most successful opening ever in the UK, at £14.9 million. Visit the official Goblet of Fire website.

Microsoft Game Studios acquires Peter Molyneux’s Lionhead Studios, a leading video gaming developer in the United Kingdom. Lionhead’s first and most notable game was Black & White. Visit the official Lionhead Studios website.

Nintendo releases the platform game Kirby: Canvas Curse for the Nintendo DS in Australia. OFLC: G (General)

Nintendo releases Super Mario Strikers as Mario Smash Football for the GameCube in Australia. OFLC: PG (Parental guidance)

2007
A total of 2,590,160 .eu domains have been registered since the domain was made available on April 7, 2006. Industry analysts believe that this number represents a peak in the number of domains that will be registered, as the number of registered domains general decreases following the initial “landrush” of availability as speculative domain registrations that fail to be resold are not renewed. The theory holds up as, on April 5th alone, approximately fifteen thousand domains were deleted. Visit the official website of EURid, the European registry of internet domain names.