1881
Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell found the Oriental Telephone Company, the world’s first telephone company.
1915
Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, inaugurates the first transcontinental telephone service in the United States with a phone call placed from New York City to Dr. Thomas Watson in San Francisco, California. In a ceremony, Bell, age 68, makes the ceremonial first call and speaks the first complete sentence transmitted by telephone across a continent, “Mr. Watson, come here. I want you!” The circuit consists of 2,500 tons of copper wire, 130,000 poles, and three vacuum tube repeaters.
1933
The University of Iowa launches low definition television station W9XK, the first educational television service in the United States.
1955
Scientists at Columbia University unveils an atomic clock accurate to within one second every three hundred years.
1988
The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Angel One” first airs. (No. 114) In it, the Enterprise’s mission takes it to a world dominated by women in a search for a shipwrecked crew. Memory Alpha entry
1992
Version 1.11 of RemoteAccess BBS is released.
1993
The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Ship in a Bottle” first airs. (No. 612) In it, Barclay accidentally reactivates the Professor Moriarty holodeck character, who seizes control of the Enterprise from the holodeck. Memory Alpha entry
1994
A federal grand jury for the Western District of Tennessee returns a twelve-count indictment against Robert and Carleen Thomas, the operators of the Amateur Action BBS for conspiracy to violate federal obscenity laws, shipping obscene materials, and one count of causing the transportation of materials depicting minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.
The US Deep Space Probe Science Experiment (DSPSE), also known as the Clementine Lunar Orbiter is launched on a mission to test an array of sensors and experimental probe components. It will map the surface of the Moon from lunar orbit from February 6 and May 5, 1994, using a laser to generate the first topographic lunar map.
1998
Servers at the University of Seville servers are hacked by “Zyklon”.
The website of the Colorado Legal Eagles is hacked by “The #pascal trio”. View an archive of the defaced website.
The website of Hartnet is hacked by “OptikLenz”. View an archive of the defaced website.
The website of Umeå Universitet is hacked by “ToxicEdge”. View an archive of the defaced website.
1999
Intel announces the 300MHz mobile Celeron processors for notebook computers, featuring a integrated Level-2 cache.
Intel announces the new mobile Pentium II processors, featuring speeds of 300, 333, and 366MHz with integrated 256KB Level-2 cache. Code-name: Dixon
Linus Torvalds releases version 2.2 of the Linux operating system kernel. It includes several new features, including better support for multiple processors and a streamlined firewall setup. The number of people running Linux is estimated at over ten million users.
Sun Microsystems introduces the Jini network architecture, with the promise that it will give users “the simple connection of any device to any network, any time, anywhere.” Visit the official Jini website.
2000
US District Judge Ronald Whyte reinstates some restrictions on how Microsoft can use Sun Microsystems Java technology in its software. Microsoft may no longer distribute products that are not compatible with Sun’s Java license, but the company won’t be required to recall any of its non-complying products.
2001
Microsoft announces that some of its websites have been sabotaged by hackers using denial-of-service (DoS) attacks which overloaded routers with several thousand of messages received in very brief spans of time.
2002
Bandai Entertainment Inc. releases the anime film Escaflowne, directed by Kazuki Akane and starring Maaya Sakamoto and Tomokazu Sekim, premieres in 5 selected US theaters. The plot of the film is similar to the television series of the same name, with significant differences. It will gross US$16,692 domestically in its opening weekend. IMDB listing MPAA Rating: PG-13 Running Time: 1 hr 38 mins
2003
Capcom releases the hack and slash game Devil May Cry 2 for the PlayStation 2 in North America. Visit the game’s official website. ESRB: M (Mature) Price: US$49.99
The SQL slammer worm, or the Sapphire worm, rapidly spreads across the Internet, becoming one of the fastest spreading viruses in history by exploiting vulnerabilities in Microsoft Desktop Engine and Microsoft SQL Server 2000. Just ten minutes from the worm’s release, it reaches a projected ninety percent of the Internet and infects over seventy-five thousand machines. Within just thirty minutes, twenty percent of data packets on the Internet are infected. It will grow into one of the most noticed worms in history when ATM service is disabled worldwide.
2004
The NASA Mars Exploration Rover – B (MER-B), also known as Opportunity, lands on surface of Mars. Visit the official MER-B website.
2005
Take Two Interactive announces the acquisition of Visual Concepts Entertainment, the developer of the ESPN 2K5 series of sports games for US$24 million. Take Two also launches the publishing label 2K Games. Visit the official Take Two Interactive website.
2006
The discovery of the world’s smallest vertebrate, the Paedocypris progenetica, is announced in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B. A tiny member of the Carp family, the transparent fish was discovered in the highly acidic peat swamps of Sumatra. The females of the species are only 7.9mm (.3 inches) in length.
2007
Dan Bricklin releases wikiCalc, a web application for creating and editing spreadsheets collaboratively through a wiki-style interface, under a GNU General Public License. The application’s release is greeted with considerable publicity as it was Bricklin who created VisiCalc, the first commercial spreadsheet program for personal computers. Visit the official wikiCalc website.
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