480 BC
Spartan hoplites under the command of Leonidas I, along with Thespians under the command of Demophilus, fight to the last man in the Battle of Thermopylae, losing to a large Persian invasion force led by Xerxes I.
1877
American astronomer Asaph Hall discovers the moons of Mars, which he names Phobos and Deimos. In Greek mythology, these are the names of the sons of Ares (Mars) and Aphrodite (Venus). Deimos is Greek for “panic” and phobos is Greek for “fear.” These moons are composed of carbon-rich rock like C-type asteroids and ice. But their densities are so low that they cannot be pure rock. They are more likely composed of a mixture of rock and ice. Both are heavily cratered. They were probably asteroids forced by Jupiter into orbits in Mars’ gravity.
1896
The first electric light bulb socket featuring a pull chain is patented by Harvey Hubbell of Bridgeport, Connecticut. (US No. 565,541)
1953
Television service begins in Belgium.
1962
Eighteen months after Yury Gagarin became the first man in space, the Soviet Union launches cosmonaut Andrian Nikolayev aboard Vostok III, setting an endurance record after circling the Earth sixty-four times over a distance of 1,650,000 miles in ninty-six hours. Nikolayev is Russia’s third cosmonaut to travel into space.
King Kong vs. Godzilla, directed by Ishiro Honda and starring Tadao Takashima, Kenji Sahara, Yu Fujiki, and Ichiro Arishima, is released in Japan as Kingu Kongu tai Gojira. It is the third installment in the Japanese series of kaiju films featuring Godzilla. IMDB listing
1980
Former Michigan State University student James Dallas Egbert III shoots himself in the head in the living room of his apartment. He will die at Grandview Hospital on the August 16th, just over a year after his notorious disappearance from campus on August 14, 1979. The sixteen year old child prodigy’s disappearance, which William C. Dear will document in the book Dungeon Master: The Disappearance of James Dallas Egbert III, lead to widespread urban myth in which roleplayers die in the steam tunnels beneath their campus. Read more about the incident at Hoboes: Part One Part Two
1987
Hungarian sculptor and architecture professor Ernõ Rubik, the inventor of the Rubik’s cube, patents the Rubik’s Magic puzzle in the US, more than two years after patenting it in in Hungary. (HU No. 1211/85 / US No. 4,685,680)
At the Macworld Expo show, Apple Computer introduces HyperCard with the HyperTalk script language, MultiFinder 5.0 co-operative multitasking, and AppleFax Modem for the Macintosh. Hypercard software allows users to create database applications with “cards” containing text, graphics, sound, and animation, linked to each other via hypertext links. The software will ship for free with new Macintosh computers, and costs US$49 for existing Macintosh owners.
Microsoft releases the first version of its graphical operating system (OS), Windows 1.01. The graphical user interface (GUI) will prove to be a complete failure.
1989
20th Century Fox releases the sci-fi horror film The Abyss, directed by James Cameron and starring Ed Harris, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Michael Biehn, and J.C. Quinn, to 1,533 US theaters. In the film, an American nuclear submarine is attacked (during the cold war) and crashes underwater. The navy asks the workers of a nearby underwater oil rig who are joined by a number of navy SEALS to locate and investigate the cause of the crash. As the crew embark on their mission, they encounter a number of difficulties and discover that they may not be alone. There is something else down there. The movie features a historic breakthrough in cinematic effects in which Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) creates the first computer-generated 3-D character using a computer software-based morphing process. The process enables fluid on-screen transformations between independent objects. Produced on a budget of US$41 million, the film will gross domestically US$9,319,797 in its opening weekend. IMDB listing MPAA Rating: PG-13 Running Time: 2 hrs 26 mins
1993
SNK releases Samurai Shodown for the fighting game Neo Geo. It is the first in what will be a popular game series set in eighteenth century Japan.
1995
Square Soft releases the role-playing game Chrono Trigger for the Super NES in the US. The game’s story follows a group of young adventurers who are accidentally transported through time and learn that the world will be destroyed in the distant future. Vowing to prevent this disaster, they travel throughout history to discover the means to save the planet. ESRB: K-A (Kids to Adults)
T&E Soft releases T&E Virtual Golf for the Virtual Boy in Japan.
1996
Microsoft releases the Internet Explorer web browser to compete with Netscape’s popular Navigator browser.
1997
Nintendo releases the puzzle game Tetrisphere for the Nintendo 64. It is a variation of Tetris in which blocks are stacked across a sphere. ESRB: KA (Kids to Adults)
1998
Acclaim Entertainment begins shipping WWF War Zone for the PlayStation and Nintendo 64 in the US. ESRB: T (Teen)
Sega releases the trivia game Quiz: Ah! My Goddess for the Sega Dreamcast.
1999
Electronic Arts releases the first-person shooter (FPS) System Shock 2 for Windows in North America. ESRB: M (Mature)
The Red Hat open source software development company goes public. It is the eighth largest first-day gain in Wall Street history. Visit the company’s official website.
A total solar eclipse occurs. It is visible in northern France, Germany, Austria, Hungary, and northern Serbia. It is the most viewed total solar eclipse in history, being the first total eclipse visible from Europe since July 22, 1990 and the first visible in the United Kingdom since June 29, 1927. An estimated 350 million people observed it. It will also be the last total eclipse of the millennium. In Egypt, Muslims are ordered by clerics to shut themselves away, but Jordan and Syria declare a national holiday
Word circulates in the industry that Bernie Stolar, president of Sega of America has been discharged of his duties. Rumors abound that he was officially notified at approximately 2:30pm Pacific Time although many insiders heard the news hours before that time from Japanese sources. Rumors include news that two relatively unknown Japanese figures will step in to take over Stolar’s functions and that the entire operation will undergo a major shakeup. Many industry analysts challenge Sega’s wisdom. Although it has been known that Stolar would likely be ousted, the timing just before the United States launch of Dreamcast seems to confirm that the company’s instability. By end of day, a formal release is made by Sega of America, Inc. announcing that Toshiro Kezuka has been named vice-chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), and Sega declares it policy not to comment on personnel decisions though no such policy was cited in regard previous personnel moves.
2000
Nintendo releases the role-playing game Paper Mario for the Nintendo 64 in Japan. It is the first game in Nintendo’s Paper Mario series and a follow up on the popular Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars for the Super NES. ESRB: E (Everyone) ELSPA: 3+ OFLC: G
The Stargate SG-1 episode “Watergate” first airs. (No. 407) In it, the Russians have been using the second Stargate in secret, but after dialing a world that’s completely under water, they lose contact with their Stargate facility and approach the SGC for help. GateWorld entry
2001
The Classic Gaming Expo 2001 is held from Saturday, August 11 to Sunday, August 12 at Jackie Gaughan’s Plaza Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Retrodesign releases professionally boxed copies of Combat Two for the Atari 2600 game system at the Classic Gaming Expo 2001 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The original ROMS for the game had been recently recovered after nearly twenty years of collecting dust. Retrogames made special arrangements to finally release the title to the public.
2003
The MSBlast computer worm is distributed via the internet. It exploits a flaw in Microsoft Windows using a distributed component object model (DCOM) remote procedure call (RPC). Despite the release of a software patch twenty-six days earlier, 9.5 million computers will become infected by the worm.
2004
Gameloft releases Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Jungle Storm for the Nokia N-Gage in the US. ESRB: T (Teen)
The Omni Group releases version 5.0 of the OmniWeb web browser for the Mac OS X operating system. This version includes tabbed browsing in which the tabs are displayed vertically in a drawer on the side of the window with the option of displaying thumbnails of each page. Visit the application’s website.
The physical disc specifications for the BD-ROM (Blu-ray read-only memory) format of high definition video discs are finalized and published.
Version 5.0.4 of L0phtCrack, a password auditing and recovery (cracking) tool, is released for Windows. Visit the application’s official website.
2005
Activision releases Madagascar for the Game Boy Advance, GameCube, Nintendo DS, PlayStation 2, Windows, and Xbox in Japan. It is based on the animated movie of the same name. ESRB: E10+ (Everyone 10+)
The Gen Con Indy is held from August 11 – 14 at the Indiana Convention Center in Indianapolis, Indiana. Approximately twenty-five thousand people attend the event.
Yahoo! acquires forty percent of Alibaba.com for US$1 billion. Alibaba will take over operation of Yahoo! China
2006
Electronic Arts (EA) changes the language in the terms of service agreement for the Ultima Online massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) to make the creation or use of server emulators a violation of Ultima’s license agreement. The change comes in response to an increase in the number of players who use emulators reverse engineered from the game’s official servers. The increase is partly due to several free releases of the original client for download. For a list of Ultima emulators, visit Wikipedia.
Idea Factory releases the tactical roleplaying game (RPG) Spectral Force 3: Innocent Rage for the Xbox 360 in Japan.
The last software patent on the Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) expires.
The largest string of firecrackers ever assembled is ignited in Buchanan, Wisconsin. It contains an estimated ten and a half million firecrackers.
The Stargate Atlantis episode “Progeny” first airs. (No. 305) In it, Weir and the team visit an advanced civilization that split off from the Lanteans thousands of years ago, and have built an entire planet out of Ancient technology. But they soon discover the peopel may not even be Lantean or even organic for that matter. GateWorld entry
The Stargate SG-1 episode “Uninvited” first airs. (No. 1005) In it, SG-1 discovers mysterious creatures on planets where they have use their Sodan cloaking devices. When the creatures begin appearing on Earth
2007
The website of the United Nations is hacked by “Eno7″ and the three member “Byond Crew Hack Team”, “kerem125″, “m0sted”, and “Gsy”. The group describes themselves as “Turkish defacers” and have been responsible for a string of high-profile website defacements in protest of US and Israeli policies in the Middle East, specifically an Israeli offensive against Lebanon in the previous year. The portion of the site usually reserved for official statements from the UN Secretary General is defaced with a message that reads, “Hacked By kerem125 M0sted and Gsy That is CyberProtest Hey Ysrail and Usa dont kill children and other people Peace for ever No war.” According to the website m0sted.org, the protest’s objective is to make the point “that the powerful have no right to oppress the powerless”. The message is removed at 13:15 GMT (9:15am EST).
2008
At 7:42am EDT, the Hubble Space Telescope completes its one hundred thousandth orbit around the Earth. It has remained in orbit for over eighteen years, traveling at a speed of approximately five miles per second, traveling some 2.72 billion miles in the course of its service. The telescope was first launched from the Space Shuttle Discovery on April 24, 1990.
|
|
|
