1605
El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha (Book One of Don Quixote) by Miguel de Cervantes is first published in Madrid, Spain.
1939
The Superman comic strip premieres. The series will run continuously until May 1966, and, at the peak of its popularity, it ran in over three hundred newspapers with an aggregate readership of over twenty million.
1956
The United States government’s automated air defense system, the Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE), is disclosed to the public. The SAGE system connects hundreds of radar stations in Canada and the United States into the first large-scale computer communications network. With the increasing fear of a large-scale attack on the United States, it was evident that the nation’s defense capabilities required an improvement, and the Lincoln Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) was commissioned to develop an automated nationwide computer-based air defense system to provide the edge that the nation needed. SAGE was completed in the early sixties, and it revolutionized air defense and civilian air traffic control. In 1979, SAGE will be replaced by Regional Operations Control Centers (ROCC).
1961
The Bell System proposes a new service called TELPAK (TELecommunications PAcKage) which would create “electronic high-ways” between specific points, over which many types of communications might be transmitted.
1973
The USSR Lunakhod 2 lunar rover begins to survey the surface of the Moon via radio-control. The rover will make astronomical observations, measure magnetic fields, perform laser ranging experiments, and shoot video footage.
1978
While snowed in during the Great Chicago Snowstorm of 1978, Ward Christensen begins preliminary work on what will eventually become Computer Bulletin Board System (CBBS), the first Bulletin Board System (BBS). Christensen will collaborate with his friend Randy Suess. The entire system is conceived, designed, programmed, debugged, and tested in thirty days. between January 16 and February 16 1978.
1985
Leonard Nimoy, best known for his role as Spock on Star Trek, is honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
1986
Apple Computer releases the Macintosh Plus, featuring a 8MHz Motorola 68000 and 1MB (expandable to 4MB) of RAM, and a SCSI peripheral bus. Price: US$2,599
The first meeting of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is held. The organization’s purpose is to develop and promotes Internet standards, particularly the TCP/IP and Internet protocol suite. Visit the official IETF website.
1995
The science fiction series Star Trek: Voyager premieres with the two-hour episode, “Caretaker.” (No. 101 – 102) In it, the first female starship Captain to be featured as the central character of major science fiction series gets sucked into another quadrant, bangs up her ship, kills half her crew, gets hopelessly lost, and pisses off the locals … to the unending delight of male chauvinists everywhere. The series will run for seven seasons, for a total of 172 episodes. Visit the series’ official website. Memory Alpha entry TV.com entry
The United Parmount Network (UPN) begins telecasting, from it’s flagship, WWOR in New York City. The network will be dissolved on September 15, 2006. Visit an archived version of the official UPN website.
1996
In the case of Lotus v. Borland, the Supreme Court of the United States allows the Appeals Court’s ruling of March 9, 1995 stand by a tie vote of four-to-four, with Justice John Stevens not participating. In the suit, Lotus claims that Borland has infringed upon its copyrights with Quattro Pro. The district court ruled in favor of Lotus, however, on appeal, the allegedly infringing features in Quattro Pro were ruled to be a “method of operation” and thus not subject to copyright.
Microsoft acquires Massachusetts-based Vermeer Technologies Inc., a developer of web publishing tools such as FrontPage for US$130 million. Read the official press release.
Multimedia Wire publishes a report entitled, “Atari Corp. Exits Video Game Business, To Liquidate Game Assets.”
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