The Great Geek Manual

1845
The first voice synthesizer, later known as P.T. Barnum’s Euphonium, is demonstrated to the public.

1882
The first string of Christmas tree lights is created by Edward H. Johnson, an associate of Thomas Edison, to decorate his home Christmas tree. Traditionally, trees are traditionally decorated with wax candles. The first commercially produced Christmas tree lamps will be manufactured in strings of nine sockets by the Edison General Electric Co. of Harrison, New Jersey, and they will be advertised in the December 1901 issue of the Ladies’ Home Journal. Each socket will take a miniature two candlepower carbon-filament lamp operating on thirty-two volts. Electric Christmas tree lights will quickly become popular among wealthy Americans, but the average citizen won’t use them until the twenties or later. Character light bulbs will become popular in the twenties, bubble lights will become popular in the forties, twinkle bulbs will become popular in the fifties, and plastic bulbs will become popular by 1955.

1932
Universal Pictures releases the horror film The Mummy, directed by Karl Freund and starring Boris Karloff, Zita Johann, David Manners, and Edward van Sloan, to US theaters. In it, a field expedition in Egypt discovers the mummy of ancient Egyptian prince Im-Ho-Tep, who was condemned and buried alive for sacrilege. The Scroll of Thoth, which can bring the dead back to life, is also found in the tomb. One night a young member of the expedition reads the Scroll out loud, bring Im-Ho-Tep back to life. Ten years later, disguised as a modern Egyptian, the mummy attempts to reunite with his lost love, an ancient princess who has been reincarnated into a beautiful young woman. IMDB listing Running time: 1 hr 13 mins

1944
Universal Pictures releases the horror film The Mummy’s Curse, directed by Leslie Goodwins and starring Lon Chaney Jr., Peter Coe, and Virginia Christine, to US theaters. In it, an irrigation project in the rural bayous of Louisiana unearths Kharis the living mummy (Lon Chaney Jr.), who was buried in quicksand 25 years earlier. IMDB listing Running time: 1 hr 2 mins

1947
J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly incorporate Electronic Control Company as Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation to build new computer designs for commercial and military applications.

1955
The FINAC, the Italian Mark I, is inaugurated in Rome. The Mark I is the commercial prototype of the Manchester Mark I which was built by Ferranti Ltd., for UNESCO’s International Computational Center in Rome.

1967
The Star Trek episode “Wolf in the Fold” first airs. (No. 43) In it, Scotty is suspected of killing several women while on shore leave on Argelius II. Memory Alpha entry

1968
The first live telecast from a manned spacecraft in outer space is transmitted at 3:01pm from Apollo 8, 139,000 miles from Earth, thirty-one hours and twenty minutes after its launch. A total of six live television transmissions will be broadcast by the crew during the course of the mission, including the famous Christmas Eve broadcast in which the astronauts read from the book of Genesis.

1975
The Soviet Union’s Statsionar I geostationary satellite is launched.

1982
International Business Machines (IBM) announces that it will acquire twelve percent of Intel shares for US$250 million.

1989
The University of Colorado grants Steve Wozniak an honorary Doctor of Engineering degree.

1993
Microsoft releases Excel 5.0 for Windows.

1997
The American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN), the Regional Internet Registry (RIR) for Canada, the United States, and some islands in the Caribbean and North Atlantic ocean, is incorporated as a nonprofit in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Visit the organization’s official website.

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of JT Storage Corporation, Tom Mitchell, announces the discontinuation of development and production of the company’s three inch hard drive. He also reports a US$60.6 million loss in their third quarter ending November 2. In his report, he reveals that a thirty-one percent reduction in worldwide headcount was implemented reducing the company’s staff from 8,400 to 5,800.

The DocJoJo website is hacked by “Kaos97″. View an archived version of the defaced webpage.

The frontpage of the 347th Communication Squadron is hacked by “p00t”. View an archived version of the defaced webpage.

The website Ingmar.com is hacked by “Kaos97″. View an archived version of the defaced website.

1998
MCI WorldCom Inc. eradicates a virus dubbed “Remote Explorer” that scrambles hard drive files and spreads through corporate networks.

Next Generation Online reports that Sony has shipped 14,250,000 PlayStation game consoles in Japan, 16,400,000 in Europe, and 19,350,000 in the United States.

1999
Microsoft Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Greg Maffei, leaves Microsoft to become Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Worldwide Fiber Inc. based in Vancouver, Canada.

2000
Ravisent Technologies announces that Microsoft has selected the company to supply DVD playback software for Microsoft’s Xbox video game system.

The Security-Enhanced Linux (SELinux), which was primarily developed by the United States National Security Agency (NSA), is release to the open source community for further development. SELinux is a set of modifications to the Linux kernel which provides a strong but flexible mandatory access control (MAC) architecture similar to the one used by the United States Department of Defense. Visit the software’s official website.

2003
The second and third film in the Matrix trilogy, both released earlier in the year, are shut out of visual effects Oscar consideration by the Visual Effects Award Nominating Committee.

Jon Lech Johansen, also known as DVD-Jon, is acquitted for the second time of hacking into DVD security codes. After Johansen released DeCSS, he was prosecuted in Norway for computer hacking in 2002. The prosecution was conducted by Økokrim, a Norwegian crime unit that investigates and prosecutes economic crimes, after a complaint was made by the US DVD Copy Control Association (DVD-CCA) and the Motion Picture Association (MPA). Johansen denied writing the decryption code in DeCSS, saying that this part of the project was accomplished by someone in Germany. His defense was assisted by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). The trial opened in the Oslo district court (Oslo tingrett) on December 9, 2002 with Johansen pleading not guilty to charges that had a maximum penalty of two years in prison. The defense argued that no illegal access was obtained to anyone else’s information, since Johansen owned the DVDs himself. They also argued that it is legal under Norwegian law to make copies of such data for personal use. The verdict was announced on January 7, 2003, acquitting Johansen of all charges. This being the verdict of the district court, two further levels of appeals were available to the prosecutors, to the appeals court and then to the Supreme Court. Økokrim filed an appeal on January 20, 2003, and it was reported on February 28 that the appeals court (Borgarting lagmannsrett) had agreed to hear the case. Johansen’s second DeCSS trial began in Oslo on December 2, 2003, and it resulted in an acquittal on December 22, 2003. Økokrim will later announce on January 5, 2004 that it will not appeal the case to the Supreme Court.

Little GLORIAD (Global Ring Network for Advanced Application Development), a networked ring across the northern hemisphere with connections in Chicago, Amsterdam, Moscow, Novosibirsk, Zabajkal’sk, Manzhouli, Beijing, and Hong Kong goes into operation. This is the first-ever fiber network connection across the Russia-China border.

2005
The European Commission takes steps to fine Microsoft €2 million (US$2.4 million) a day if it does not comply by January 25 with its 2004 antitrust ruling.

2007
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) launches its “Next Generation Identification,” a project to build a billion dollar biometric database system that, upon completion will be largest of its kind in the world. The agency, which already compiles faces, fingerprints, and palm patterns, announced that it would be awarding a ten-year contract to expand its existing databases to include other types of information.