1839
In New York City, John Draper makes a daguerreotype of the Moon, becoming the first person in the U.S. to photograph a celestial body, the Moon.
1926
In a letter published in the journal Nature, American chemist Gilbert Newton Lewis coins the term “photon.” In the letter, he writes that it “would seem inappropriate to speak of one of these hypothetical entities as a particle of light, a corpuscle of light, a light quantum, or a light quant, if we are to assume that it spends only a minute fraction of its existence as a carrier of radiant energy, while the rest of the time it remains as an important structural element within the atom. It would also cause confusion to call it merely a quantum, for later it will be necessary to distinguish between the number of these entities present in an atom and the so-called quantum number. I therefore [propose for this] which is not light but plays an essential part in every process of radiation, the name photon.”
1958
The world’s first communications satellite, SCORE (Signal Communications by Orbiting Relay Equipment), is launched aboard an Atlas B missile, and it will shortly thereafter record a Christmas message to the world from President Eisenhower to be transmitted the next day.
1965
Gemini VII splashes down in the western Atlantic Ocean with command pilot Frank Borman and pilot Jim Lovell Jr. on board. The mission was launched on December 4 for the purpose of physiological testing and spacecraft performance evaluations.
1973
Soyuz 13, crewed by cosmonauts Valentin Lebedev and Pyotr Klimuk, is launched from Baikonur in the Soviet Union.
1976
Paramount Pictures releases the film King Kong, directed by John Guillermin and starring Jeff Bridges, Charles Grodin, and Jessica Lange to 974 US theaters. It is a remake of the 1933 classic King Kong. In it, a petroleum exploration expedition comes to an isolated island and encounters a colossal giant gorilla. The film features a 40-foot robot developed specifically for close-ups in the film. Produced on a budget of US$24 million, it will gross US$7,023,921 domestically in its opening weekend. IMDB listing MPAA Rating: PG Running Time: 2 hrs 14 mins
1987
Larry Wall, a linguist working as a systems administrator at NASA, releases the first version of his Practical Extraction And Reporting Language, Perl 1.000. Perl was designed to serve as a general purpose Unix scripting language, and it will become well known for its extraordinary general adaptability and extensive text-processing capabilities. It will come to be dubbed “the Swiss Army chainsaw of programming languages.” Visit the language’s official website.
1991
DeForest Kelly, best known for playing Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy on Star Trek, gets a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
International Business Machines (IBM) and Siemens AG announce the development of a prototype 64MB DRAM chip. The break-through continues the standard of Moore’s Law, which predicts a doubling of the number of transistors etched into silicon every eighteen months.
1993
The first Thai satellite, Thaicom 1, is launched.
1995
In the Monday, December 18 issue of People Weekly magazine, singer Whitney Houston is quoted as saying, “He played me like I was Atari.” She was admiringly referring to how masterfully her latest romantic interest swept her off her feet.
1997
HTML 4.0 is published by the World Wide Web Consortium.
The Swedish website NetTime is hacked and defaced by “hyperon”. View an archived version of the defaced website.
1998
Warner Brothers releases the romantic film You’ve Got Mail, directed by Nora Ephron and starring Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, Greg Kinnear, Parker Posey, Dave Chappelle, Steve Zahn, Jean Stapleton, and Dabney Coleman, to 2,691 US theaters. In it, two New York City business rivals who regard each other with mutual animosity fall in love over the internet. It’s a remake of the 1940 film The Shop Around the Corner. The film title is the phrase used by America Online (AOL) software, which is shown and used by the film’s characters. Produced on a budget of US$65 million, it will gross US$18,426,749 domestically in its opening weekend. IMDB listing MPAA Rating: PG Running Time: 1 hr 59 mins
1999
NASA launches the Terra platform carrying five Earth Observation instruments, including: the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER), the Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES), Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR), the Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), and the Measurements of Pollution in the Troposphere (MOPITT). Visit the official NASA Terra website.
2000
The Australian government endorses the transfer of authority for the .au domain to the au Domain Administration (auDA). ICANN will relinquish control over the domain to auDA on October 26, 2001. Visit the official auDA website.
Newsweek magazine publishes an article reporting that a Tokyo-based conference entitled “What ever happened to PlayStation2?” was held in late November. The article also reports that many users have been unimpressed with the new games for the system and are using it frequently to play DVD movies. The magazine reports that the over-engineered PlayStation 2 might consequently cost Sony over US$200 million.
2003
Daniel Jeremy Baas, age 25, of Milford, Ohio pleads guilty in United States District Court to hacking into a protected computer and stealing customer databases at Acxiom, a company in Little Rock, Arkansas that manages customer information for credit card issuers, banks, automotive manufacturers, retailers and others. The total cost to Acxiom incurred by Baas’s intrusion and theft of data is more than US$5.8 million. Baas worked as a computer systems administrator for a Cincinnati-based company that did business with Acxiom, which made files available for download for Baas’ employer. With that access, Baas ran a password-cracking program on Acxiom computers, illegally obtaining about 300 passwords, including one with administrator-level privileges. That user account allowed him to download files belonging to other Acxiom customers, which contained confidential identification information. Baas faced a maximum prison sentence of five years, a fine of $250,000 or twice the amount of gain or loss, and three years of supervised release.
Linux kernel 2.6 is released.
2005
A global coalition of scientists from Germany, the UK, and the US announced that five thousand letters of the Mitochondrial DNA from a 27,000-year-old Siberian Mammoth are decoded. The sequence is the longest of any Pleistocene species decoded to date. The sequenced DNA provides evidence of a close genetic relationship between the ancient creature and the modern-day Asian Elephant.
The History Channel airs a two hour documentary, Brothers in Arms, using simulations created, in part, with Ubisoft’s Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 video game. The documentary follows the mission of the 101st Airborne, 502nd Parachute Infantry from June 6, 1944 through through June 13, 1944, including their part in the D-Day invasion of Normandy.
White Wolf Publishing Inc., the tabletop roleplaying game developer best known for its Vampire: The Masquerade, was forced to take down its website after hackers exploited a software flaw to steal user data in order to extort money from the company. In place of the website, White Wold posted a notice reading, in part, “We have no intention of paying this money, and are in contact with the FBI in an attempt to bring these criminals to justice,” White Wolf said in a notice posted online… As far as we can ascertain, they were unable to access any credit card data (nor have they claimed they did). However, it is possible for the encrypted passwords they accessed to be decrypted given enough time.” Visit the official White Wolf website.
2006
Opera Software ASA released version 9.1 of its Opera web browser. This version introduced a new fraud protection through GeoTrust, a digital certificate provider, and PhishTank, an organization that tracks phishing websites.
2007
Version 5.10.0 of the Perl programming language is released. Visit the language’s official website.
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