352
The first confirmed celebration of Christmas takes place.
1818
The first performance of “Silent Night” takes place in the Church of St. Nikolaus in Oberndorf, Austria.
1939
The character and story of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is created by Robert L. May for Montgomery Ward stores.
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens is read on the radio for the first time, on CBS radio.
1959
Sony launches their first transistor-based television set, model TV-301, in Japan.
1973
ARPANET crashes when a programming bug causes all ARPANET traffic to be routed through the server at Harvard University and the server freezes.
1987
The Christmas virus, the world’s first WAN virus, begins to effect computers. The virus draws a Christmas tree on the victim’s monitor and searches out other network users.
1990
Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau use the earlier rudimentary browser Berners-Lee developed over the course of a month earlier in the year to access the world’s first web server at info.cern.ch from their respective computers. Thus, the World Wide Web undergoes its first trial run.
1994
A hacker, initially believed to be Kevin Mitnick, allegedly hacks into the computer of security expert Tsutomu Shimomura and steals the Oki cell phone disassembler written by Shimomura. Later, a different, Israeli hacker is believed to be the hacker responsible. Shimomura responds by tracking Mitnick with New York Times reporter John Markoff to Raleigh, North Carolina. The events following the intrusion, including the eventual arrest of Kevin Mitnick will be recorded in the book Takedown.
1997
The homepage of Rand J Trading is hacked by “StarCracker”. View an archived version of the defaced webpage.
Lancasterhome.com is hacked by “Claire Danes”. View an archived version of the defaced webpage.
Warner Bros. released the science fiction film The Postman, directed by Kevin Costner and starring Kevin Costner, Will Patton, Larenz Tate, Olivia Williams, James Russo, Daniel Von Bargen, and Tom Petty, to 2,207 US theaters. The film, based on the 1985 novel of the same name by David Brin, follows the story of a drifter who brings hope to a series of small Pacific Northwest cities in a post-apocalyptic world when he takes the uniform of a dead postman begins delivering letters. Produced on a budget of US$80 million, it will gross US$5,260,324 domestically in its opening weekend. IMDB listing MPAA Rating: R Running Time: 2 hrs 57 mins
The website of the Centerfold Alumni Association is hacked by “StarCracker”. View an archived version of the defaced webpage.
The website of MPM Software is hacked by “StarCracker”. View an archived version of the defaced webpage.
The website of Net 4 Christ Enterprises is hacked by “Newport”. View an archived version of the defaced webpage.
1998
Between August 15, 1998, to December 25, 1998 eight hundred thousand iMac computers were sold, averaging one every fifteen seconds. The number makes the iMac the best-selling computer in history.
In the United States, one hundred thousand DVD Video players have been sold in the past two weeks, bringing the total sold to date to more than a million units.
1999
Dreamworks SKG releases the comedy film Galaxy Quest, directed by Dean Parisot and starring Tim Allen, Alan Rickman, Sigourney Weaver, Tony Shalhoub, Sam Rockwell, Daryl Mitchell, Enrico Colantoni, Robin Sachs, Missi Pyle, and Justin Long, to 2,412 US theaters. The film is full of allusions to and parodies of the Star Trek and Blake’s 7 television series. In it, the cast of a canceled science fiction television show have to become the roles that they’ve played when an alien race needs their help. Produced on a budget of US$45 million, it will gross US$7,012,630 domestically in its opening weekend. IMDB listing MPAA Rating: PG Running Time: 1 hr 42 mins
Konami releases Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness for the Nintendo 64 in Japan.
2002
Konami releases the music game Dance Dance Revolution EXTREME to arcades. Visit the game’s official website.
2003
The European Space Agency loses contact with its Beagle 2 Mars probe shortly before it’s scheduled landing on Mars.
Paramount Pictures releases the science fiction film Paycheck, directed by John Woo and starring Ben Affleck and Uma Thurman, to 2,762 US theaters. It is based on the short story Paycheck by Philip K. Dick. In it, a reverse engineer who takes a job on a mysterious project, at the conclusion of which he must erase his memory, finds himself fleeing from police and dodging assassination attempts with the use of a set of commonplace items that he has sent himself. Produced on a budget of US$60 million, it will gross US$13,462,374 domestically in its opening weekend. IMDB listing MPAA Rating: PG-13 Running Time: 1 hr 59 mins
Version 1.8.1 of the Ruby programming language is released. Visit the language’s official website.
2004
The Cassini orbiter releases the Huygens probe, which will successfully land on Saturn’s moon Titan on January 14, 2005. Visit the space probe’s official website.
Version 1.8.2 of the Ruby programming language is released. Visit the language’s official website.
2005
Byte Level Research releases a study that revealed that less than thirty percent of the world’s Internet users are native-English speakers and that, by 2010, that number will drop to twenty-five percent as more of the population of Brazil, China, and Russia gain internet access.
Version Alpha 1 of the GoldenEye: Source mod for the first-person shooter Half-Life 2 for Windows. It is based on the award winning Nintendo 64 video game, GoldenEye 007. Visit the mod’s official website.
2006
A hacker releases a custom 3.02 firmware for the PlayStation Portable allowing any PlayStation game to be played from a Memory Stick.
Konami releases the platform game Super Castlevania IV for the Virtual Console in the US. ESRB: E (Everyone)
Nintendo releases Super Mario Bros. for the Virtual Console in North America. ESRB: E (Everyone)
Universal Pictures releases the science fiction film Children of Men, directed by Alfonso Cuarón and starring Clive Owen, Julianne Moore, Michael Caine, Claire-Hope Ashitey, Pam Ferris, and Chiwetel Ejiofor, to 16 US theaters in a limited release. Set in the year 2027, in a chaotic world in which humans can no longer procreate, the film follows a former activist who agrees to help transport a miraculously pregnant woman to a sanctuary at sea, where her child’s birth may help scientists save the future of humankind. Produced on a budget of US$76 million, it will gross US$501,003 domestically in its opening weekend. Visit the film’s official website. IMDB listing MPAA Rating: R Running Time: 1 hr 49 mins
2007
20th Century Fox released the science fiction film Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem, directed by Colin and Greg Strause and starring Dan O’Bannon, Ronald Shusett, and Jim Thomas, to 2,611 US theaters. Produced on a budget of US$40 million, it will gross US$10,059,425 domestically in its opening weekend. Visit the film’s official website. IMDB listing MPAA Rating: R Running Time: 1 hr 26 mins
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