The Great Geek Manual

1831
Charles Darwin returns home from a geology field trip in North Wales to find letters from Reverend John Henslow and George Peacock informing him that he will soon be invited on a scientific voyage of HMS Beagle. He is just twenty-two years old and has just graduated from Cambridge University. The offer is to be a naturalist aboard the HMS Beagle for a two year survey of South America, leaving on September 25th. Although he immediately accepts the offer, his father and sisters are opposed to the trip. They regard the trip as an idle pursuit that will delay his expected career in the clergy. His father is prepared to change his mind, but only if Darwin can find a qualified man who views the exploit as worthwhile. Darwin will spend the next two days doing just that.

English chemist Michael Faraday discovers electromagnetic induction, the production of an electric current by a change in magnetic intensity, which will become the fundamental principle behind later electric generators.

1842
The design patent, a new form of patent, is authorized by an act of Congress. The first US design patent will be issued for typefaces and borders to George Bruce of New York City on November 9, 1842.

1893
A patent is issues to Whitcomb L. Judson for a “Zipper Clasp Locker or Unlocker for Shoes.” (US No. 504,038)

1929
For the first time in history, a news bulletin is broadcasts by the BBC from all of its regional stations.

1940
CBS first demonstrates its field-sequential color television systemto the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). It will demonstrate the system for the press on September 4 and for the general public on January 12, 1950.

1949
The USSR tests its first atomic device, “First Lightning,” at Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan. It is an an implosive type plutonium bomb, detonated at the Semipalatinsk test range, with a yield of up to a twenty kilotons. In the US it is called “Joe 1,” “Joe” being a nickname for Stalin. This test comes five years earlier than anyone in the West had predicted, largely due to the spy Klaus Fuchs. As a Los Alamos physicist, Fuchs had passed detailed blue prints of the original American Trinity bomb design to the Russians. With the emergence of the USSR as a nuclear rival, America’s monopoly of atomic weaponry ends, leaving the US scrabbling for further atomic innovations. Thus begins the Cold War.

1953
The USSR detonates its first hydrogen bomb.

1965
Astronaut Gordon Cooper in orbit one hundred miles above the Earth aboard Gemini 5 holds a conversation with aquanaut M. Scott Carpenter aboard the US Naval underwater habitat Sealab II, which is 205 feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean. It is was first time an astronaut in space has spoken with an aquanaut. The event is by and large a publicity stunt, but its primary goal is to test the capabilities of the Sealab’s electronics lab.

Later in the day, Gemini 5 will re-enter the atmosphere and splashed down, using the re-entry thrusters to orient the spacecraft due to Orbit Attitude and Maneuvering System or (OAMS) failures. The retrofire and re-entry are conducted in darkness by the spacecraft computer. However, the computer had been mis-programmed with an erroneous rotation rate for the Earth (390 degrees per day instead of 360.98 degrees per day). Cooper’s efforts to compensate for what he recognizes as an erroneous reading brings the capsule down closer to the recovery ship than planned.

1967
Final episode of the US television drama series The Fugitive on the ABC network achieves a rating of 72 percent, the highest rating in television history. Read more about the series at The Museum of Broadcast Communications.

1969
The first Interface Message Processor (IMP) is sent to UCLA from BBN. The next day, it will be received by Leonard Kleinrock and his group, who will be responsible for setting it up on October 1st, transmitting the first electronic message between two computers on October 2nd, and transmitting the first long-distance host-to-host communication on October 29th.

1979
Atari makes the first official shipment of Atari 400 and 800 home computers to Sears. These units are a hand-built pilot run built shipped to meet Sears’ in-stock deadline so that they could be placed in the store’s Big Fall Catalog. As soon as the units are warehoused, fulfilling the commitment, the units will be returned to Atari while Sears awaits the actual production models that won’t be shipped until November. The Atari 400 and Atari 800 Home Computers debuted at the Winter Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in early January.

1982
According to Twin Galaxies, Peter Skahill, age 23, scores a record-setting 911,875 points on the Atari game Warlords after playing the game for forty-five minutes at the UCLA Games Center in Los Angeles, California. Visit the official Twin Galaxies website.

The fifty-two thousand mile Transglobe expedition completes the first circumnavigation of the world’s polar axis. Beginning in 1979, British explorers Ranulph Fiennes and Charles Burton have traveled for three years around the Earth via the Poles circling the Earth along longitude axis zero, the Greenwich Meridian. The expedition reached the North Pole on April 11, 1982, and it reached the South Pole sixteen months before that. Their journey across Antarctica took sixty-seven days, despite having used motorized skidoos as opposed to traditional dog sleds. The ocean voyage was undertaken in a craft named Benjamin Bowring. The expedition cost an estimated US$18 million.

A single atom of a new element is created. It will later be given the name Meitnerium (Mt). Physicists at the Heavy Ion Research Laboratory in Darmstadt, West Germany made and identified element 109 by bombarding Bi-209, an isotope of Bismuth, with an accelerated nuclei of Fe-58, an isotope of Iron. After a week of bombardment a single fused nucleus is produced. The combined energy of two nuclei had to be sufficiently high enough that the repulsive forces between the nuclei could be overcome. The team confirmed the existence of element 109 by four independent measurements. The experiment demonstrates the feasibility of using fusion techniques as a method of making new, heavy nuclei.

1989
Voyager 2 spacecraft speeds by Neptune after making startling discoveries about the planet and its moons.

1990
The British Computer Misuse Act, one of the first laws designed to address computer fraud crimes, goes into effect. The act is the result of a string of failed hacker prosecutions in the eighties, particularly one incident in which a British Telecom computer was cracked by two hackers in order send messages to the Duke of Edinburgh.

1991
Nintendo releases Super Mario Bros. 3 for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in Europe. It is the last major Mario video game for the system. Unlike its predecessor, Super Mario Bros. 2, this game remains true to the original Super Mario Bros. gameplay formula, with a great deal more innovation and freshness than Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels featured. The game introduces a number of advances to the Mario series, including the addition of a map screen, minigames, many new types of power-up, new enemies, and several new types of levels. Bowser appears as a red-head for the first time, though it will become a standard in subsequent Mario titles. Bowser’s children, the Koopalings, also appear for the first time in this game.

1994
Version 2.61 of Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) is released.

Viacom announces the coming acquisition of the video rental chain Blockbuster for US$8 billion. The acquistion will be completed on September 29.

1997
The online DVD rental company Netflix, founded by Reed Hastings, is incorporated in the US. It will begin operations on April 14, 1998.

Universal Pictures releases the fantasy action film Kull the Conqueror, directed by John Nicolella and starring Kevin Sorbo, Tia Carrere, Thomas Ian Griffith, and Roy Brocksmith, to 2,091 US theaters. In the film, a barbarian named Kull unexpectedly becomes a king after dealing a death blow to an old king who gives his crown to Kull before dying. However, direct heirs of the former king, trying to topple Kull and regain the throne, resurrects an ancient witch-queen named Akivasha to depose Kull. Akivasha has her own agenda, though, and the only thing that can stop her the breath of the god Volka, for which Kull must quest. The film will gross US$3,450,145 domestically in its opening weekend. IMDB listing (MPAA Rating: PG-13) Running Time: 1 hr 36 mins

2000
Pope John Paul II denounces human embryo cloning and stem cell research in a speech delivered to an international congress on organ transplants. Of human embryo cloning, he says, “Methods that fail to respect the dignity and value of the person must always be avoided. I am thinking in particular of attempts at human cloning with a view to obtaining organs for transplants: these techniques, insofar as they involve the manipulation and destruction of human embryos, are not morally acceptable, even when their proposed goal is good in itself.” Read the pope’s speech in its entirety at the Vatican website.

Sony unveils the Clie handheld computer in New York, featuring the Palm OS, a monochrome display, a Memory Stick slot, 8MB RAM, and an 8MB Memory Stick. Price is US$399; weight is 4 ounces. “Clie” stands for Communication Link Information Entertainment. Visit the product’s official website.

2001
Version 7.1.1 of the Fermi Linux operation system, “Top,” is released. Fermi Linux is a catch all designation for Linux distributions used by the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), which are based on Scientific Linux. Visit the application’s official website.

2002
The Gen Con UK 2002 game fair is held August 29 – September 1 at the Olympia 2 in London, England. Visit the game’s official website.

Version 7.0 of the Netscape web browser is released. This version is a continuation of version six series of Netscape browsers, not a complete re-tooling, as past major version changes have been. This version also doesn’t go far in increasing the application’s popularity over Mozilla and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. In fact, AOL’s decision to disable the browser’s popup-blocker functionality in this version outrages many users who had previously been loyal Netscape users. Visit the application’s official website.

2003
Jeffrey Lee Parson, age 18, of Minneapolis, Minnesota is arrested for developing and releasing the B Variant of the MSBlaster Worm. This variant is referred to by a number of different names, including “W32/Lovesan.worm.b.” This variant infected seven thousand computers. These infected computers were then used to launch a denial of service (DOS) attack on Microsoft, particularly, its website, http://www.windowsupdate.com. The United States Secret Service was instrumental to the investigation that lead to Parson’s arrest.

2006
LexisNexis releases version 8.0 of the Time Matters practice management software for Windows. In addition to contacts, it manages calendaring, email, documents, research, billing, accounting, and projects. Visit the application’s official website.

2007
Microsoft announces an agreement to acquire Parlano, the developer of Mind-Align, a enterprise chat application. Following the acquisition, Microsoft will add the functionality of Mind-Align to its Office Communications Server.

NBC Universal and News Corp founds the Hulu streaming video website with AOL, MSN, MySpace, and Yahoo! as “initial distribution partners.” The site offer programming from numerous US cable channels, including: Bravo, Comedy Central, E!, FOX, Fuel TV, FX, G4, NBC, Oxygen, PBS, Sci Fi, SPEED Channel, Style, Sundance, USA Network, and Versus. Within a year, it will grow to offer over four hundred television programs and over a hundred films for users to watch, share, or even edit together (or “Mash”). Initially, the site is limited to beta testers, then to users invited by friends. It will be publicly launched on March 12, 2008. Visit the official Hulu website.

2008
20th Century Fox releases the science fiction film Babylon A.D., directed by Mathieu Kassovitz and starring Vin Diesel, Michelle Yeoh, and Mélanie Thierry, to 3,390 US theaters. Produced on a budget of US$70 million, it will gross US$9,484,627 domestically in its opening weekend. It is based on the French novel Babylon Babies by Maurice Georges Dantec. IMDB listing (MPAA Rating: PG-13) Running Time: 1 hr 30 mins