1886
German scientist, Dr. Carl Gassner, is issued a German patent for the first “dry” cell battery, which uses zinc as its primary component. (No. 37,758) He encased the cell chemicals in a sealed zinc container. Gassner’s battery is much like the carbon-zinc, general-purpose batteries popularly used today. Gassner will also patent his invention in Austria, Belgium, England, France, and Hungary by the end of the year. A US patent will be issued to Gassner in 1887. (US No. 373,064)
1947
The largest sunspot group recorded is observed on the Sun’s southern hemisphere. Its size is an estimated seven billion square miles, with an area approximately 6,100 millionths of the Sun’s visible hemisphere. A large sunspot will usually measure 300 to 500 millionths of the visible hemisphere, whereas the entire surface area of the Earth is only 169 millionths of the solar disk.
1953
Columbia Pictures premieres the first 3-D movie produced and released by a major studio, Man in the Dark, at the Globe Theater in New York City. The film stars Edmund O’Brien, starring Edmond O’Brien, and it is a remake of the 1936 film “The Man who Lived Twice.” The next 3-D feature movie, The House of Wax, will be the first from a major company to be shot in color. It will open only two days later, at the Paramount Theater in New York City. The concept of the 3-D movie isn’t new, though. The very first one, “The Power of Love,” was produced in the US by Perfect Pictures in 1922, using the familiar method of providing the audience spectacles with red and green lens to produce the illusion of depth. The first 3-D movie with sound was a Russian production of “Robinson Crusoe,” which premiered in Moscow in February 1947.
1960
At the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, astronomer Frank D. Drake, age 29, turns the observatory’s 85-foot Howard Tatel telescope toward the star Tau Ceti, marking the start of Project Ozma, the first search for signs of possible extraterrestrial intelligence. Read more about Project Ozma.
1964
NASA launches the Gemini 1 unmanned spacecraft.
1966
OAO 1, the first orbiting astronomical observatory, is launched equipped with instruments to detect X-ray, ultraviolet and gamma ray emissions.
1981
Disc-jockey Larry Norton ends a record-breaking continuous broadcast of 484 hours on radio station WGRQ FM at Buffalo, New York, which began on March 19.
1983
According to Twin Galaxies, Burt Jennings scores a record-setting 76,377,300 points playing the Williams Electronics arcade game Defender at the Outer Limits arcade in Durham, North Carolina. Visit the official Twin Galaxies website.
According to Twin Galaxies, Roger Mangum scores a record-setting 71,473,400 points playing the Williams Electronics arcade game Stargate at the Outer Limits arcade in Durham, North Carolina. Visit the official Twin Galaxies website.
Atlantic Releasing releases the romantic comedy Valley Girl, starring Nicolas Cage, Deborah Foreman, E.G. Daily, Cameron Dye, and Joyce Hyser, is released to 442 US theaters. Shot in just twenty-two days, the film is a quick jump-on-the-bandwagon response to popular film Fast Times at Ridgemont High, which had been a blockbuster upon its release the prior August and in which Cage had also played a role. The combination of the two films will make an enormous impact on teen culture, introducing a wealth of vernacular into daily language. Nowhere will that vernacular be more evident than on the BBS forums of the day. Produced on a budget of US$350,000, it will gross US$1,856,780 domestically in its opening weekend. IMDB listing MPAA Rating:R Running Time: 1 hr 35 mins
Steve Jobs convinces John Sculley, who was the president of PepsiCo at the time, to take a position as president and CEO of Apple Computer.
1988
International Business Machines (IBM) announces that it will license its Micro Channel Architecture (MCA) patents to competitors. MCA is a proprietary 16- or 32-bit parallel computer bus created by IBM in the eighties for use in their high-end Personal System/2 series of computers.
1991
A Sun Microsystems team begins to work in secret on project “Oak,” a software development that will later be renamed Java.
1993
NASA launches the Space shuttle Discovery. (STS-56)
1996
Universal Studios releases the monster film Tremors 2: Aftershocks, directed by S.S. Wilson and starring Fred Ward, Christopher Gartin, Helen Shaver, and Michael Gross is released directly to video. The film features special effects to rival its forerunner, Tremors, but the stars of the first film, Kevin Bacon and Reba McEntire don’t return to their roles, relegating the film to B movie status. The film features a stand-up coin-operated video game called Graboids. The sides of the cabinet and a illuminated sign make the game appear to be genuine although no actual video game play is ever shown. It was a unique prop built for the film by Ivo Cristante, the film’s Production Designer, and painted by Noelle Charles. Producers thought the game should be fully developed, but Universal never pursued the concept, except as a very simple game which appeared briefly on the film’s website. The film was produced on a budget of US$4 million. IMDB listing MPAA Rating: PG-13 Running Time: 1 hr 36 mins
1997
Microsoft releases version 4.0 of its Internet Explorer web browser for Windows. It’s launch marks the beginning of the first so-called “browser war,” and the issue of its integration into Windows was among the principal causes of the antitrust case United States v. Microsoft. The browser introduced a number of technological advances, including support for Dynamic HTML, inline PNG images, parental ratings, and website “subscriptions” which notify users of updates. By March 1999, this version of the browser will achieve a sixty percent marketshare. Internet Explorer 4′s marketing slogan is “The Web the Way You Want It!”
2000
The website of WBK Finanzidee is hacked by the Brazilian hacking group “H0sT_L0sT”. View an archived version of the defaced website.
2004
The Fair Trade Commission of Japan (JFTC) raid of the offices of Intel’s Japanese subsidiary during the course of an investigation of allegations that Intel violated Japanese antitrust laws in the processor market.
2008
Five years after its initial release, version 1.00 of the BitComet bittorrent client is released. Visit the official BitComet website.
Soyuz TMA-12 is launched with the first Korean astronaut, Yi So-yeon, and two Russian Expedition 17 cosmonauts aboard on a mission to the International Space Station (ISS).
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