The Great Geek Manual

1804
The first self-propelling steam locomotive makes is tested at the Pen-y-Darren ironworks in Wales, on its normally horse-drawn tramline. The railway engine is able to pull a load of fifteen tons at a speed of about five miles per hour. However, adhesion is a problem. The iron wheels slip on the iron rails and the the cast-iron rails of the tramways are not strong enough to support the weight of the new machine. The experiment is soon abandoned.

1858
The first electrical burglar alarm is installed in the US by Edwin T. Holmes in Boston, Massachusetts. When a door or window is opened, a spring is released, closing an electrical circuit.

1875
Jeanne Calment is born. Calment will live for 122 years and 164 days, which is the longest confirmed lifespan of any human being in history.

1878
The first telephone book is issued in New Haven, Connecticut by the New Haven Telephone Company. It lists twenty-one names.

1884
Edition one of the Oxford English Dictionary is published.

1893
Thomas A. Edison receives two US patents, one for a “Cut Out for Incandescent Electric Lamps” and another for a “Stop Device.” (US No. 491,992, -3) These are the first light switches.

Thomas A. Edison finishes construction of the first motion picture studio, the Black Maria in West Orange, New Jersey.

1902
Dr. Harvey Cushing, performs the first brain operation, becoming the first US brain surgeon. Born in New Haven, Conneticutt, Cushing’s clinical contributions are numerous: the first use of x-rays in surgical practice, the first use of physiological saline for irrigation during surgery, the discovery that the pituitary is the master hormone gland, the founding of the clinical specialty of endocrinology, the use of the anesthesia record, the use of blood pressure measurement in surgical practice, and the physiological consequences of increased intracranial pressure. Evidently, this is where the term brain surgeon originally became associated with intelligence.

1937
Waldo Waterman’s Arrowbile, first automobile-plane hybrid, successfully flies. The vehicle, has a top speed of 120 mph in the air or 70 mph on the road. The Arrowbile was designed by aeroengineer Waldo Dean Waterman and built by the Westerman Arrowplane Corporation of Santa Monica, California. It evolved from the prototype Arrowplane, a project which aimed to design a simple, easy to fly, low cost airplane. The Studebaker Corporation, which supplied the one hundred horsepower engines, eventually took delivery of five Arrowbiles.

1947
Edwin H. Land first demonstrates the Polaroid Land camera, the first instant camera during a meeting of the Optical Society of America, at the Hotel Pennsylvania, in New York City. The camera produces a black and white photograph in sixty seconds, using development and fixer chemicals sandwiched in pods with the photographic paper and film. After exposure, development is initiated by turning a knob that squeezed open the pod of chemicals.

The first US soap opera, “A Woman to Remember,” premieres.

1952
The government of Winston Churchill abolishes Identity Cards in the UK in order to “set the people free”.

1953
Francis Crick and James D. Watson reach the conclusion that the DNA molecule has a double helix structure. They will make their first announcement concerning the discovery on February 28, and publish their paper A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid was in the April 25, 1953 issue of journal Nature. Read the original paper at the journal Nature’s website.

1958
The first US submarine to circumnavigate the world returns to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii after leaving harbor on July 8, 1957. The Gudgeon (SS 567) had traveled about twenty-five thousand miles in 228 days. During the course of the trip, the eighty-three man crew, under the command of LCDR John O. Coppedge, visited ports in Asia, Africa and Europe, aboard the 269-foot-long submarine.

1963
Radiation permanently disables the Telstar satellite, the first active communications satellite, the first satellite designed to transmit telephone and high-speed data communications, and the first privately owned satellite. Read more about the Telstar at the RetroFuture website.

1972
The Soviet unmanned spaceship Luna 20 lands on the Moon in the Apollonius highlands, at latitude 3°32′ N and longitude 56°33′ E. It will return to Earth with thirty grams of lunar samples.

1974
The long-running Japanese comic strip “Sazae-san” publishes its final installment in the Asahi Shimbun, one of the five national newspapers in Japan.

1981
Charles Rocket, portraying the gunshot victim in a Saturday Night Live parody of the “Who shot J.R.?” plot on the program Dallas, says, “I’d like to know who the fuck did it,” during the live feed of the closing “goodnight” segment. Afterward, everyone but Eddie Murphy and Joe Piscopo are fired.

1983
According to Twin Galaxies, Ed O’Neil scores a record-setting 252,114,350 points playing Robotron: 2084 at the Outer Limits arcade in Durham, North Carolina. Visit the official Twin Galaxies website.

1984
IBM files a lawsuit against Eagle Computer for copyright violation of the BIOS used in the IBM PC. Eagle agrees on the same day to cease shipments of the infringing computers.

Marshall F. Smith is appointed as the new president and CEO of Commodore International by Irving Gould to replace Jack Tramiel. Smith has managerial experience in the steel industry but none in the computer industry.

Timex withdraws from the home computer business.

1986
Nintendo releases the Disk System for the Famicom in Japan. The system is a disk drive to run software. Disks can be rewritten with new games at special vending machines. Price: US$100

Nintendo releases the Legend of Zelda video game for the Famicom Disk System in Japan.

1990
A Chicago task force raids the home of Robert Izenberg in Austin, Texas.

1995
Steve Fossett lands in Leader, Saskatchewan, Canada, becoming the first person to ever make a solo flight across the Pacific Ocean in a balloon.

The United States Supreme Court rejects Apple’s final appeal regarding the lawsuit alleging that Microsoft infringed on the copyright of the Macintosh interface, ending the seven-year legal struggle.

1997
20th Century Fox premieres The Special Edition of Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back in US theaters. The re-released version includes a wide number of alterations and additions, primarily motivated by the drastic improvements in special effects technology. IMDB listing MPAA Rating: PG

Nintendo announces plans to reduce the manufacturer’s suggested retail price of its Nintendo 64 in Japan by one third, from twenty-five thousand yen (about US$203) to sixteen thousand nine hundred yen (about US$137).

Nintendo of America, Inc. files suit against the Taiwanese semiconductor chip manufacturer, Winbon Electronics Corporation, alleging that Winbon illegally manufacturered and distributed disk copiers and counterfeit Nintendo video game software.

1998
The website of Humblebums is hacked by “Noid/TechVoodoo”. View an archived version of the defaced website.

The website of Jacksonville University is hacked anonymously. View an archived version of the defaced website.

1999
Ståle Schumacher Ytteborg publishes PGPfreeware 6.0.2i for Windows.

2001
At the Macworld Expo in Tokyo, Japan, Apple Computer introduces the iMac Special Edition, available in Dalmatian Blue, Flower Power, or Graphite designs. It features a 500 or 600 MHz PowerPC G3 processor, 64 or 128 MB RAM, 256 KB Level-2 cache, a CD-RW drive, and a 15-inch monitor. Price: US$1,199-1,499.

At the Macworld Expo in Tokyo, Japan, Apple Computer introduces the new Nvidia GeForce3TM graphics processor for Macintosh computers.

2002
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) discloses the details of the AMD-8000 series chipset.

Cuba issues a 65 centavos postage stamp depicting a personal computer.

2003
The Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrates during reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere, killing all seven astronauts aboard.

2007
Frances E. Allen, age 75, becomes the first woman to receive a Turing Award from the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) in the award’s forty-year history. Allen is named the 2006 recipient in honor of the theory and practice of optimizing compiler techniques that she pioneer while working at IBM that laid the foundation for modern optimizing compilers and automatic parallel execution.

2008
Blizzard publicly releases a statement concerning the consequences of buying virtual gold for use in the MMORPG World of Warcraft. In the statement, Blizzard claims that an “alarmingly high” proportion of gold available for purchase online has been stolen from accounts that have been “hacked” or hijacked.