660 BC
The founding of Japan by Emperor Jimmu is generally attributed to this date.
1938
BBC Television produces the world’s first science fiction television program, an abridged adaptation of Karel Capek’s play Rossum’s Universal Robots (R.U.R.). It is this play from which the word “robot” was originally coined.
1939
Lise Meitner and her nephew, Otto Fritsch, publish a theoretical paper which used the term “nuclear fission” for the first time ever in the journal Nature.
The Lockheed P-38 makes a record-setting flight between California and New York in seven hours and two minutes.
1954
The largest light bulb in history, rated at 75,000 watts, is lit at the Rockefeller Center in New York to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Edison’s first light bulb. The bulb is 3½ feet high and about 2 feet in diameter. In January 1879, built his first high resistance, incandescent electric light, with thin platinum filament in a glass vacuum bulb. It only burns for only a few hours before burning out. It was this initial success that started him testing the thousands of substances that would eventually lead him to discover of the carbon filament which would become standard for all incandescent light bulbs.
1965
The International Business Machines (IBM) Data Processing Division DPD introduces the IBM 1130 computing system. Visit the official IBM website
1966
The RAND Corporation takes the Johnniac Open Shop System (JOSS) out of service. JOSS is a conversational time-sharing service that eases the bottleneck experienced by programmers in a batch environment, in which long delays between sending information to the computer and receiving the results occur.
1970
The University of Tokyo’s Institute of Space and Aeronautical Science launches the first Japanese satellite, Osumi 5, is launched aboard a Lambda-4 rocket from the Kagoshima Space Center on the Osumi peninsula, making Japan the fourth country to put a satellite into Earth orbit.
1983
A Taipei, Taiwan district criminal court dismisses allegations made by Apple Computer that Golden Formosa Microcomputer and Sunrise Computer Service produced and sold bootlegged Apple software products.
1984
The fourth mission of the Space Shuttle Challenger becomes the first shuttle to land on the runway at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It is the tenth NASA shuttle mission.
1985
Digital Equipment announces that it has ceased production of Rainbow computers.
Franklin Computer, a US electronics manufacturer, emerges from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Visit the official Franklin Computer website.
Texas Instruments (TI) begins volume production of 256KB DRAM chips. Visit the official Texas Instruments website.
1989
Sega releases the puzzle game Zoom! for the Sega Megadrive in Japan.
1990
Enix releases Dragon Quest IV for the Famicom in Japan. On the first day in stores, 1.3 million copies are sold, for about US$75 each.
Version 0.02 of RemoteAccess BBS is released.
1991
The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Clues” first airs. (No. 414) In it, the crew is knocked unconscious when the Enterprise passes through a wormhole, but as time passes, the seemingly innocuous explanation given by Data comes into question. Memory Alpha entry
1993
Midway Games releases Mortal Kombat Version 4.0 to arcades in the US.
1996
Grandmaster Garry Kasparov, wins the second of six games against “Deep Blue,” a computer capable of “seeing” between fifty to one hundred billion chess positions every three minutes. Kasparov will ultimately win the match with two wins, one loss, and three draws.
1997
NASA launches the Space Shuttle Discovery on its second mission to make upgrades to the Hubble Space Telescope. (STS-82) The crew will make a record-setting five extravehicular activities (EVAs) to repair the orbiting telescope. Repairs will include the replacement of the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) and the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS).
1999
Square releases Final Fantasy VIII for the PlayStation in Japan.
A website of the Republic of Indonesia is hacked by “Toxyn”. View an archived version of the defaced website.
1998
The website www.odi.com.pl in Poland is hacked by the “TPSA team”.
1999
Square releases Final Fantasy VIII for the PlayStation in Japan. CERO: B (12+)
2000
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) introduces the 850MHz Athlon processor, featuring a 512KB Level-2 cache and a 200MHz Front Side Bus. Price: US$849 in 1000 unit quantities
Per Lidén releases version 0.5.3 of the CRUX operating system. CRUX is a lightweight Linux distribution optimized for i686 systems, specifically designed for experienced Linux users. Visit the system’s official website.
The US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reverses an earlier ruling that had prevented Connectix from shipping the Virtual Game Station PlayStation emulator software for the Macintosh.
2002
Capcom releases the platform game Maximo: Ghosts to Glory for the PlayStation 2 in North America. Visit the game’s official website. ESRB: T (Teen)
2003
Asymmetric Publications releases the turn-based comedy roleplaying game Kingdom of Loathing for web browsers. The game is known for its use of hand-drawn stick figure characters. Visit the official Kingdom of Loathing website.
Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) releases the fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) EverQuest Online Adventures for the PlayStation 2. Visit the game’s official website. ESRB: Teen (T)
2004
Bandai releases Lupin the 3rd: Treasure of the Sorcerer King for the PlayStation 2 in North America. The game is based on the anime series Lupin III. Visit the game’s official website. ESRB: T (Teen)
Konami releases Castlevania: Lament of Innocence for the PlayStation 2 in the EU. Chronologically, it is the first game in the Castlevania series. Visit an archive of the game’s official website. PEGI: 12+
Sega releases Otogi 2: Immortal Warriors for the Xbox in Europe. Visit the game’s official website.
The Star Trek: Enterprise episode “Harbinger” first airs. (No. 315) In it, the crew encounters the race who built the Spheres. Memory Alpha entry
2005
The Andromeda episode “The Opposites of Attraction” first airs. (No. 515) In it, Harper attempts to delay Tarn Vedra’s collision with Seefra-1 with an enormous parabolic deflector.
Blizzard Entertainment releases massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) World of Warcraft for personal computers in Europe. Visit the game’s official website. PEGI: 12+ USK: 12
Capcom releases the platform game Mega Man X8 for the PlayStation 2 in Europe. It is the eighth game in the Mega Man X series. PEGI: 7+
LucasArts releases Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II The Sith Lords (KotOR II) for the Xbox in Europe. PEGI: 12+ USK: 12+
Public Radio International program The World launches its technology podcast hosted by Clark Boyd. Visit the official The World website.
The Star Trek: Enterprise episode “The Aenar” first airs. (No. 414) In it, Archer visits Shran’s home world to meet with the Aenar in an attempt to determine their part in a Romulan plot. Memory Alpha entry
THQ releases Jimmy Neutron: Attack of the Twonkies for the GameCube and PlayStation 2 in PAL regions.
An unnamed fourteen year old is sentenced to three years probation and three hundred hours of community service by Chief Judge Robert S. Lasnik for releasing a computer worm in August 2003 that attacked the same vulnerability in computer software as the Blaster worm did in August of 2003. The juvenile directed computers infected with the RPCSDBOT worm to launch a distributed denial of service (DoS) attack against Microsoft’s main website, crashing the site for approximately four hours.
2006
VGMix, a website devoted to video game music, is closed temporarily due to repeated hacking attempts on the site’s database code. Visit the VGMix website.
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