1612
Galileo Galilei becomes the first astronomer to observe the planet Neptune, although he catalogs it as a fixed star.
1895
The world’s first movie theater opens in the Salon Indien at the Grand Café in Paris, France. The theater makes use of a portable film camera and a functional projector, the Cinematographe, based on Edison’s experimental Kinetograph. Thirty-three people attend this first public show, at the admission price of one franc each. Their first film, La Sortie des ouvriers de l’usine Lumière, was created especially for the occasion. It shows workers leaving the Lumières’ factory in Lyon by foot, by bicycle, and by car. The theater is owned and operated by Louis and Auguste Lumières, who will refuse all offers to purchase copies of their equipment. View the film online at the Institut Lumière.
1958
Toho Company Ltd. releases The Hidden Fortress, directed by Akira Kurosawa and starring Toshiro Mifune and Misa Uehara to theaters in Japan. As with most of Kurosawa’s work, this film will be immensely influential on future film makers, including George Lucas and Quentin Tarantino. In it, two greedy peasants escort a man and woman across enemy lines. However, they do not realize that their companions are actually a princess and her general. IMDB listing Running Time: 2 hrs 19 mins
1962
The International Business Machines (IBM) Data Processing Division (DPD) releases the IBM 1420 bank transit system.
1981
The first American test-tube baby, Elizabeth Jordan Carr, is born in Norfolk, Virginia.
1982
According to Twin Galaxies, Roger Mangum scores a record-setting 2,326,350 points playing Sega’s Zaxxon at the Outer Limits arcade in Durham, North Carolina. Visit the official Twin Galaxies website.
According to Twin Galaxies, Scott Hunter scores a record-setting 1,365,450 points playing Taito’s Mr. Do! at the Game Power arcade in Arlington, Texas. Visit the official Twin Galaxies website.
1995
CompuServe blocks access to over two hundred sexually explicit sites, partly to avoid confrontation with the German government. Access to all but five will be restored on February 13, 1996.
Julio Cesar Ardita, age 21, also known as “El Griton”, of Argentina is arrested in Argentina for hacking into Harvard, Los Alamos National Laboratory, NASA, and the United States Naval Command, Contro and Ocean Surveillance Center. He will be sentences to three years of probation
1996
Nintendo of America announces predictions that sales of the Nintendo 64 will top 1.6 million by the end of the year and that 500,000 to 700,000 new units will be shipped to North America between January 1st and March 31st in the coming year.
1998
United States President William Jefferson Clinton announces that the computers that control the nation’s Social Security payments are now Y2K compliant.
The website of Finance Net is hacked by “kpz”. View an archived version of the defaced website.
2001
Microsoft Game Studios releases the vehicular combat game Blood Wake for the Xbox in the US. ESRB: T (Teen)
2004
Aquaplus releases the visual novel ToHeart2 for the PlayStation 2. Visit the game’s official website. CERO: 15+
2005
Anthony Clark, age 21, of Oregon plead guilty in federal court to writing and distributing a worm that allowed him to seize control of twenty thousand computer and use them to launch a denial-of-service attack (DoS) on eBay, Inc.. Clark was arrested as part of a “Botnet” investigation by the US Secret Service and the US Attorney’s Office
The first satellite in the Galileo network of satellites, GIOVE-A, is launched by a consortium of European governments and companies. When it will be completed in 2011, the $4 billion Galileo positioning system will include thirty satellites which will provide a global alternative to the United State’s own Global Positioning System (GPS). The system, which is Europe’s most ambitious and expensive space project ever, is intended ensure the continued the reliability of satellite navigation systems for civilians and to offer greater precision to paid subscribers of the system. The US system is controlled by the military, which, in the past, has raised concerns among foreign governments. Visit the project’s official website.
2006
The United States Food and Drug Administration publishes its assessment that meat and milk from cloned cattle, pigs and sheep is safe for human consumption. The decision promises to make cloning a common practice.
2007
At the twenty-fourth Annual Chaos Communication Congress, a Wii running Linux is demonstrated. While the demonstration is only a proof of concept with few practical applications, the engineers responsible for the feat announce their intent to create a bootable disk for later distribution.
Netscape announced that AOL would discontinue support and development of its web browser on February 1, 2008. Visit the Netscape browser archive.
The Warner Music Group, one of the last major music studios to refuse to sell music online without digital rights management copy protection, announced that it would begin offering songs in the MP3 song through Amazon.com.
|
|
|
Comments are closed
