1818
The novel Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley is first published. Many will consider it to be the first fully-realized science fiction novel. Read or download Frankenstein at Project Gutenberg.
1845
After having poisoned his mistress with prussic acid in Slough, England, John Tawell escapes by train to London, where he is caught by police on arrival because an electric telegram arrived before him. The event will generate an enormous amount of publicity for the new technology.
Samuel Morse opens a fifty mile electric telegraph line between Washington D.C. and Baltimore, Maryland, using his code for messages.
1902
The first radio broadcast demonstration in the US is given by Nathan B. Stubblefield at Fairmont Park in Philadelphia. His voice is the first to be carried on the air-waves during a public exhibition in which he transmits his voice to a receiver a mile away. He will keep the details of the invention secret until he receives a patent (US No. 887,357), but he will ultimately be unable to obtain a suitable buyer for his invention.
1927
In the “Discussions” section of the January issue of Amazing Stories magazine, editor T. O’Conor Sloane uses the term “science fiction” in the modern sense for the first time. In the column, he wrote, “Remember that Jules Verne was a sort of Shakespeare of science fiction, and we would feel derelict if we did not give his stories in our columns.”
1934
International Telecommunications Union (ITU) is founded to standardize and regulate international telecommunications. Visit the organization’s official website.
1935
The Associated Press launches its Wirephoto service for transmitting photographs by wire to its member newspapers. To transmit an image, a photo would be wrapped around a drum, which would be rotated around a light-sensitive photocell capable of translating differences in brightness. The device then transmitted signals via telephone lines to the subscribing newspapers. At the receiving end, a piece of photographic paper would be rotated on an identical drum around a cylinder lit by a pinpoint of light which would be focused onto the paper in varying strength according to the signal received. The photographic paper could then be processed in a darkroom.
1936
The New York Herald Tribune becomes the first newspaper to begin archiving current issues of its newspaper on microfilm. The previous year, the New York Times archived back-issues of its paper for the years 1914-27, but it has not yet done the same for its current issues.
1939
Dave and Lucile Packard move into a rented home located at 367 Addison Avenue in Palo Alto, California. William R. Hewlett rents a cottage located behind the house. David and William, ex-fellow Stanford classmates, establish the Hewlett-Packard company (HP) in the house’s garage, which will later be designated as California registered historical landmark #976, the birthplace of “Silicon Valley”. A coin toss decides the order in which their names appear in the corporate name. The US$538 investment used to start the business is borrowed from Fred Terman, a renowned radio engineering professor at Stanford. Terman will later come to be considered Hewlett and Packards’ mentor. By 1982, Hewlett-Packard will become the world’s largest manufacturer of electronic measuring and testing devices. In the meantime, their first successful product is an audio oscillator (model 200A, US$55) for testing sound equipment. Walt Disney will buy eight of the second model (200B) for use in the production of the animated feature film Fantasia.
1941
The first Chinese animated feature film, Princess Iron Fan, directed by Wan Guchan and Wan Laiming is released in China. It is adapted from the Chinese fairy tale Journey to the West. IMDB listing Running-time: 1 hr 13 mins
1944
African Journey becomes the first feature-length foreign film shown on American television.
1945
John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert sign a contract to build the first general-purpose electronic digitally-stored program computer ever designed, the EDVAC (Electronic Discrete Variable Computer.) Even before the ENIAC is unveiled in 1946, Eckert and Mauchly will already be designing their next machine. The EDVAC won’t be completed until 1952, long after Eckert and Mauchly will have left the University of Pennsylvania.
1946
ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer), the first purely electronic computer is completed by John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert. It was built at the Moore School of Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and it’s design is based on ideas developed by John Atanasoff of Iowa State College. Though it isn’t the first computer ever built, the ENIAC is regarded as the first successful, general digital computer. It weighs over 27,000 kg (60,000 lb) and contains more than eighteen thousand vacuum tubes. A staff of six technicians replace about two thousand of the tubes each month. Many of the computer’s early uses will be for military purposes, such as calculating ballistic firing tables and designing atomic weapons. Since ENIAC isn’t originally built with the ability to store programs, it will have to be reprogrammed for each new task.
1948
The first US motion picture color newsreel is shot at the Tournament of Roses and the Rose Bowl Game in Pasadena, California. Warner Brothers-Pathé will begin showing the footage as part of a newsreel to theater audiences on January 5.
1950
International Business Machines (IBM) transfers all foreign assets to IBM United Kingdom, Ltd.
1951
The first pay television service in the US begins is launched by Zenith Radio Corporation as a ninety-day trial in Chicago, Illinois. The service is provided to three hundred households chosen from fifty-one thousand applicants. The broadcast signal is scrambled and can only be viewed by those people who had the “key signal” transmitted via telephone. he first day’s full-length features, each priced at US$1, began in the afternoon with April Showers with Jack Carson, followed by the Bing Crosby movie Welcome Stranger and then Homecoming starring Clark Gable and Lana Turner. The service will sell over two thousand programs in the first month, but the service won’t be financially sustainable.
1954
The Tournament of Roses parade broadcast by the National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) from Pasadena, California and hosted by Don Ameche becomes the west coast’s first color telecast. It is seen in full color in twenty-one cities. NBC made its first live color coast-to-coast live telecast from the east coast two months earlier, on November 3, 1953, from its WNBT-TV station (now WNBC) in New York City.
1963
The first US electric power plant to use hyperbolic-shaped cooling towers goes into service in Ashland, Kentucky under the management of the Kentucky Power Company. It’s designed to cool one hundred twenty thousand gallons of water a minute.
1969
International Business Machines (IBM) begins unbundling its software, effectively ending the expectation of its customers that they will always be able to get all the software they need included with their system.
1970
Unix time begins.
1972
Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), a high-precision atomic time standard, is adopted globally. UTC is determined from six primary atomic clocks that are coordinated by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures, located in France.
1975
Bill Gates signs a document formalizing the existence of the Traf-O-Data company. The company is a partnership between Bill Gates, who holds 43% of the company, Paul Allen, who holds 36% of the company, and Paul Gilbert, who holds 21% of the company. The agreement allows Gates and Allen to use Traf-O-Data’s 8008 simulator to develop BASIC for the Altair.
1979
Microsoft moves its offices to Bellevue, Washington, from Albuquerque. Visit the Microsoft’s official website.
1981
The Kermit Project, a program to develop a transparent and flexible file transfer protocol, begins at Columbia University. Kermit is a cross-platform protocol for transferring and managing files. It is named after Kermit the Frog from the Muppets.
1983
The entire ARPANET is required to have switched from the Network Control Protocol (NCP) to Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocols (TCP/IP) by this date, officially creating the Internet. The switch is the result of a military directive issued by Richard DeLauer, the United State Under Secretary of Defense. The transition is said to have went smoothly, although buttons reading “I survived the TCP/IP transition” are distributed. Jon Postel documented the plan in RFC 801, Dan Lynch of USC ISI handled much of the logistics, and UCLA student David Smallberg documented the transition in fifteen RFC documents, between RFC 842 – RFC 876.
1984
AT&T is divested into seven regional telephone companies, ending the Bell System. AT&T retains assets worth US$34 billion, including long distance telephone, manufacturing, as well as the research and development department along with 373,000 employees, down from one million.
1985
Coleco Industries, Inc. announces that they will sell off their entire inventory of Adam home computer systems to an unnamed United States retail chain at prices below cost. Barbara Wruck, a company official, states that the company will continue to manufacture Adam computers throughout 1985 to fulfill contractual commitments.
The first British mobile phone call is made by Ernie Wise to Vodafone.
The Internet’s Domain Name System (DNS) is created.
1986
The resignation of Ernest Gary Gygax, the father of Dungeons & Dragons, from his position as the head of TSR takes effect at midnight. Lorraine Williams officially assumes his position, but she will shortly come to be widely hated by fans of the game. Read more about the history of Dungeons & Dragons at Magic & Memories: The Dungeons & Dragons Index.
Wayne Bell releases version 3.0 if the WWIV Bulletin Board System. WWIV is one of the most popular dial-up computer bulletin board software of the eighties. Among the software’s most notable features is the ability to link tens of thousands of bulletin boards together, to form a global network, in the same way as FidoNet.
1990
The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode first airs “The Defector” first airs. (No. 310) In it, a Romulan Commander defects to warn Picard of his Empire’s invasion plans in a desperate attempt to avert a war. Memory Alpha entry
Steve Bonine, Chair of the International Fidonet Association (IFNA) Elections and Nominations Committee announces that the results of the referendum on the passage of control of FidoNet to the International FidoNet Association (IFNA). The referendum was the result of network-wide rumblings that the IFNA, which was founded at the urging of Ken Kaplan to deal with the day to day operation of running the network, was “stealing FidoNet.” The results of the referendum are that the motion fails, 480 (Yes) to 1417 (No). The IFNA begins proceedings to dissolve.
1992
Atari officially discontinues support of the company’s 8-bit computer line, the Atari XE and the Atari 7800 video game console.
Strategic Simulations, Inc. releases the roleplaying game (RPG) Spelljammer – the Pirates of Realmspace for MS-DOS in North America. It follows Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Second Edition rules.
1993
Namco releases the strategy game Metal Marines for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) in the US.
Network Solutions, Inc. (NSI) and National Science Foundation (NSF) sign a cooperative agreement granting NSI the authority to manage the Domain Name system (DNS) and database.
1994
Bruce Sterling posts his book, The Hacker Crackdown in electronic form on the Internet in it’s entirety, fourteen months after its publication by Bantam Books on November 1, 1993. The book chronicles a series of law enforcement operations and profiles notable hackers, such as Emmanuel Goldstein. Read or download The Hacker Crackdown at Project Gutenberg.
Microsoft CEO Bill Gates, age 38, marries Melinda French, age 29.
1996
Bandai releases the fighting game Dragon Ball Z: Hyper Dimension for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) in Europe.
Bantam Spectra published the Star Wars novel X-wing: Rogue Squadron by Michael A. Stackpole as a paperback novel. (ISBN 0-553-56801-9) It is the first installment in the X-wing series of novels.
Midway releases the Ultimate Mortal Kombat 2 for the PlayStation and Sega Saturn in the US. ESRB: M (Mature)
Midway releases the Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 for the PlayStation and Sega Saturn in the US. ESRB: M (Mature)
1997
The Data Processing Management Association (DPMA) officially becomes the Association of Information Technology Professionals. Visit the organization’s official website.
1998
The rights to WWIV Bulletin Board System (BBS) software are purchased by WWIV Software Services from its creator Wayne Bell. WWIV has been among the most popular dial-up computer bulletin board software of the eighties and nineties. Bell wrote the first version of the software in BASIC as a high school programming project in 1984.
The Quake website is hacked by “porno”.
Three hundred domains are hacked by “Ashtray Lumberjacks”.
2000
Greenwich Electronic Time (GeT) is initiated in Britain to act as an international standard for electronic commerce.
The much publicized Y2K computer bug passes with only the most minor of complications following years of preparation and billions of dollars of preparation. The largest technology firms, however, still took measures to meet an difficulties that might arise. Hewlett-Packard, Intel, and Microsoft, among others, field large staffs to handle any customer service issues.
The United States Naval Observatory (USNO), the official US timekeeper, is one of several national time services around the world that returns “19100″ as the current year.
2001
Microsoft announces that Windows 95 has been discontinued and will henceforth be legacy software which will no longer be sold.
Penguin Putnam first publishes the urban fantasy novel Fool Moon by Jim Butcher as a paperback. (ISBN 0-4514-5812-5) Length: 352 pages Visit the author’s official website.
2002
Palm Source becomes a subsidiary of Palm, Inc.
Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) releases the racing game Gran Turismo Concept Tokyo 2001 for the PlayStation 2 in Japan. It is a scaled-down version of Gran Turismo 3, featuring twenty Japanese concept cars and five tracks. Visit the game’s official website. CERO: A (All Ages) Price: ¥3200 (about US$26)
2003
Public Interest Registry (PIR) assumes responsibility as the registry operator for the .org top level domain (TLD) from VeriSign. The transition will be completed by January 27. Verisign relinquishes control of the domain in order to retain control over the more significant .com domains. Visit the official PIR website.
2004
The first issue of the British magazine Retro Gamer is published. Visit the magazine’s official website.
Version 5.8.3 of the Perl programming language is released.
2005
Effective today all United States Department of Defense and Wal-Mart store suppliers are required to implement RFID tags.
Microsoft has files notice in Pima County Arizona Superior Court that is has won a US$7.4 million civil judgment in King County, Washington, against Glenn Hannifin. Microsoft alleges that Hannifin has sent millions of spam emails. The lawsuit claims that Hannifin violated both federal and Washington state anti-spam laws.
2006
Data Design Interactive releases the racing game Myth Makers Super Kart GP for personal computers in Europe. PEGI: 3+
2007
Mininova, one of the most popular BitTorrent search engines just passed the 1 billion torrent downloads mark.
|
|
|
