1497
Nicolaus Copernicus observes the Moon eclipse the star Aldebaran.
1949
The world’s first Department of Space Medicine is established at the United States Air Force School of Aviation Medicine at Randolph Field, Texas, and Dr. Hubertus Strughold becomes the first professor of Space Medicine.
1967
The Star Trek episode “The Return of the Archons” first airs. (No. 21) In it, crew encounters a world with where a dysfunctional society is completely controlled by a mysterious leader named Landru. Memory Alpha entry
1967
The Star Trek episode “Return to Tomorrow” first airs. (No. 49) In it, telepathic aliens take possession of Kirk and Spock to build new, mechanical bodies for themselves. Memory Alpha entry
1971
Apollo 14 returns to Earth after the third manned Moon landing.
The BBC files for a patent on Teledata, the first teletext system, which will later be renamed Ceefax.
1975
The Soyuz 17 Soviet spacecraft returns to Earth.
The Gen Con South gaming convention is held February 9 – 11, 1978 at the Robert Meyer Hotel in Jacksonville, Florida. Visit the official Gen Con website.
1982
The Boston suburb of Marlborough, Massachusetts passes an ordinance barring the use of video games by anyone under age eighteen during school hours or late at night. The ordinance also bans arcade games within fifteen hundred feet of a public school.
Walter Day, founder of Twin Galaxies, publicly publishes his database of video game high scores as the Twin Galaxies National Scoreboard. The website will become the defacto standard for arcade records across the United States. The Guinness World Records will later recognize Twin Galaxies as the official keeper of verified world records. Visit the official Twin Galaxies website.
1983
According to Twin Galaxies, Eric Ginner scores a record-setting 1,506,684 points playing the Atari arcade game Millipede at the Golfland arcade in Milipitas, California. Visit the official Twin Galaxies website.
Atari announces the My First Computer keyboard accessory for the Atari 2600 game system, to turn the system into into a personal computer.
1987
In the February 9th issue of Toy & Hobby World Show Daily magazine, Keith Powell, president of The Federated Group of Electronics Stores, reports that the US$139.95 Nintendo Deluxe video game set sold well in their stores over the holiday season due to the high degree of brand awareness. “The electronic games business is back,” says Powell in the article. Atari’s Executive Vice President of Marketing, Michael Katz, is quoted as saying, “We’ve had good success selling our systems, especially the 7800. We’re aware of new realities of the video game market and we’re positioning Atari to benefit from them.” An Activision spokesperson is quoted as saying that, “The only involvement we have in Atari VCS nowadays is when Toys ‘R’ Us or Child World comes to us with a specific quantify in mind.”
1989
Osamu Tezuka “The God of Comics” dies, leaving all of Japan grieving. Tezuka was the creator of more than one hundred fifty thousand pages of manga and over sixty animated movies. His work includes Adolf, Astro Boy, Black Jack, Kimba, Phoenix, Princess Knight, and the White Lion. He is often credited with taking manga from a cheap entertainment to a vaunted art form in Japan.
1990
A Chicago Task Force arrests Craig Neidorf, an alleged computer hacker better known by the web handle “Knight Lightning“. Read more about the incident in Bruce Sterling’s Hacker Crackdown.
1993
Collabra Software, Inc., a collaborative software developer, is incorporated. In November of 1995, Netscape Communications, Inc. will acquire the company.
1995
The first British-born American to perform a spacewalk, Michael Foale and the first black astronaut to perform a spacewalk, Dr. Bernard A. Harris, Jr., test a modified space suit and astronaut endurance out of the open cargo bay of the Space Shuttle Discovery. Together, they remain motionless for twenty minutes in the coldest part of the spacecraft’s shadow in order to test the efficiency of the suits’ new insulation as part of over three hours spent out of their shuttle at an average temperature of -92°C. The experiment is cut short from five hours after the astronauts reported feeling colder than expected.
|
|
|
