1880
The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) is founded when forty engineers from eight states meet in New York City in the offices of American Machinist. Read more about the history of the ASME. Visit the official ASME website.
1923
Archaeologist Howard Carter opens the sealed doorway to the sepulchral chamber of the tomb of King Tutankhamen tomb in Thebes, Egypt. A group of invited visitors and officials is present for the event, including Lord Carnarvon, who had funded the excavation.
1932
The first patent for a fruit tree, only the seventh plant patent in the US, is granted to James E. Markham of Stark Brothers Nurseries and Orchards in Louisiana, Missouri for a peach tree which ripens later than most varieties.
1946
The first commercial helicopter, a four-seat, single rotor Sikorsky S51, makes its first flight. It can carry three passengers over a distance of two hundred fifty miles at a top speed of one hundred miles per hour.
1948
The Twentieth Century Fox Movietone News becomes the first newsreel to be telecast daily in the US. It is broadcast over the National Broadcast Company (NBC) East Coast network.
Miranda, the smallest and innermost of the major moons of Uranus, is photographed for first time.
1953
A team of Swedish scientists headed by Erik Lundblad successfully create diamond crystals the size of grains of sand in a high pressure press by subjecting graphite to eighty-three thousand atmospheres of pressure at about two thousand degrees Celsius for an hour. The research is funded by the Swedish electrical company ASEA, which decides not to publish the results in order to keep the a trade secret. General Electric will also produce synthetic diamonds later in the year, on December 16, 1954.
1961
NASA launches the Explorer 9 satellite. It is the first satellite launched from the Wallops Station on Wallops Island in Virginia. It is also the first satellite launched using a wholly solid-fuel rocket.
1962
The Data Processing Division (DPD) announces on February 16 the Hypertape Automatic Cartridge Loader, the first device to permit automatic loading and unloading of magnetic tape for electronic computers.
1967
The Star Trek episode “Space Seed” first airs. (No. 22) In it, the crew re-awaken a ship of Augments from Earth’s eugenics war, including their leader, Khan Noonien Singh. Memory Alpha entry
1968
The first telephone system in the United States to use 911 as the official number emergency services is inaugurated in Haleyville, Alabama.
The Star Trek episode “Patterns of Force” first airs. (No. 50) In it, the Enterprise discovers a planet in the grip of a Nazi dicator who was once a Federation historian. Memory Alpha entry
1978
The Computerized Bulletin Board System (CBBS), the first computer bulletin board system is created in Chicago, Illinois by Ward Christensen and Randy Suess. The system is conceived, designed, built, programmed, tested and installed in the thirty day period between January 16th and February 16th 1978. Some sources claim that this is only the first “observed” day of operation of CBBS, and the actual operation date was weeks earlier. According to these sources, Ward and Randy stretched out the development time to one month because two weeks sounded like an empty boast.
their system is complete; they name it the Computerized Bulletin Board System (CBBS). When it finally goes online to the public in 1979, Christensen manages the system under the title “system operator” (soon shortened to “sysop”). CBBS operates like a virtual thumb-tack bulletin board. Participants can post messages to a public “board,” and others can read and respond to those messages, creating an ongoing virtual discussion.
In November 1978 Christensen and Suess publish an article in Byte magazine, describing CBBS and outlining the technology for devising virtual bulletin boards. The article drums up interest in CBBS and gives others the opportunity to build their own systems.
1984
International Business Machines (IBM) introduces the IBM Portable Portable Computer, featuring a 4.77MHz Intel 8088 processor, 256KB RAM, a 9 inch amber monitor, a 360KB 5.25 inch drive, and the DOS 2.1 operating system. Price: US$2795 Weight: 30 pounds Visit the official IBM website.
1991
Version 1.00 of RemoteAccess BBS is released. Written in Turbo Pascal with some Assembly Language routines, RemoteAccess, began as a clone of QuickBBS, but will quickly develop features that make it one of the most popular bulletin board system (BBS) programs in the US. Visit an archived version of the official RemoteAccess website.
1993
In Japan, Fujitsu introduces the Marty model of FM Towns personal computer featuring an Intel 386 processor. It runs software from a CD-ROM drive. Marty has no keyboard and requires a connection to a television. It is the first line of computers to include a CD-ROM drive standard in every model. Price: US$800
1995
At the International Solid-State Circuits Conference, Intel formally announces details of the design of the P6 processor. Visit the event’s official website.
Sega releases the platform game Ristar for the Sega Genesis in North America. ESRB: E (Everyone)
1996
Atari is among the most actively traded stocks on the American Stock Exchange, following Atari’s announcement that it will merge with Jugi Tandon Storage (JTS).
Grandmaster Garry Kasparov wins the fifth of six games against the IBM chess computer”Deep Blue,” a computer capable of “seeing” between fifty to one hundred billion chess positions every three minutes. With this second win, Kasparov will ultimately win the match.
1998
The website of PHPages is hacked by “The Noid/TechVoodoo Project”.
The website of Virtual Political Action Committee is hacked by “lunar.shake.org”. View an archived version of the defaced website.
1999
The International Solid-State Circuits Conference is held in San Francisco, California. Sony Computer Entertainment announces specifications for a new 128-bit 250MHz processor presumably for the upcoming PlayStation 2 video game system featuring two integer pipelines, two vector math units, a dedicated MPEG-2 decoding subsystem, and a 125MHz memory bus. It is capable of handling fifty-five million polygons per second, and it will be manufactured by Toshiba. Visit the event’s official website.
The website of id Software, the developer of Doom and Quake, is defaced with a “Free Kevin” banner by “mEsachicken”. Visit an archived version of the defaced website.
The website of the Central Office of Coordination and Planning of Venezuela is hacked by hackers. View an archived version of the defaced website.
2000
In Tokyo, Japan, Sega releases the Dreameye digital camera for the Dreamcast video game system.
2001
Dell announces plans to lay off seventeen hundred jobs or about four percent of its work force. The company simultaneously announces continued price cuts for consumers. Visit the official Dell website.
Infogrames releases Final Fantasy IX for the PlayStation in Europe. It is the ninth installment in the Final Fantasy video game series. Visit the game’s official website. USK: 6+
The Napster filesharing service announces plans to unveil a new subscription-based business model just days after a federal appeals court ordered the company to stop their users from sharing copyrighted music.
The United States government announces that online consumer spending during the holiday season between October and December 2000 increased by thirty-six percent over the previous year. The increase marks the first time that ecommerce sales have accounted for more than one percent of total national retail sales.
2002
The Andromeda episode “Be All My Sins Remembered” first airs. (No. 216) When the crew are called upon to identify the body Beka’s former crewmate, they discover that he is still alive and want their help to end a revolution.
2003
Capcom releases Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter for the PlayStation 2 in North America. It is the fifth game in the Breath of Fire series. ESRB: T (Teen)
The subscription-based webmail service Oddpost is launched. Oddpost pioneered the look and feel of all later webmail services. It offered significantly faster up response times than rival services such as Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail. It introduced drag and drop functionality, mirroring the look and feel of a desktop mail client. These and many other features and techniques will later be adopted by popular free service, and they will eventually become industry standards.
2004
The Andromeda episode “The Others” first airs. (No. 414) In it, the crew attempt to mediate a war in order to advert a genocide.
2005
Carol Stoker and Larry Lemke of the NASA Ames Research Center announce at a private meeting that they have discovered evidence that life may exist on the planet Mars. The information quickly leaks to the media, drawing significant attention. Two days later on February 18, NASA will release a press release directly disputing the claim.
2006
The discovery of the first malware specifically designed for Mac OS X, a low-threat trojan-horse known as OSX/Leap-A or OSX/Oompa-A, is announced.
LucasArts releases the real-time strategy (RTS) game Star Wars: Empire at War for personal computers in North America. Visit the game’s official website. ESRB: T (Teen)
2007
2K Games releases Ghost Rider for the Game Boy Advance (GBA), PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable (PSP), and Xbox in Australia. Visit the game’s official website. OFLC: M (Recommended for mature audiences)
The first Skynet Conference on Computers and Information Technology (IT), “SkyCon”, is held February 16-18, 2007, by the Skynet Computer Society at the University of Limerick in Ireland. Visit the official Skynet (University of Limerick Computer Society) website.
Nintendo releases the platform game Kirby’s Adventure for the Virtual Console in Europe.
Nintendo releases the racing game Excitebike for the Virtual Console in Europe.
Nintendo releases the sports game Mario Hoops 3-on-3 for the Nintendo DS in Europe. Visit the game’s official website. OFLC: PG (Parental guidance recommended)
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