1697
Isaac Newton receives and solves Jean Bernoulli’s brachistochrone problem. The swiss mathematician Bernouilli had challenged his colleagues to solve it within six months. Newton not only solved the problem before going to bed the night after the challenge had been issued, but in doing so, he invented the new branch of mathematics called “calculus of variations.” Newton will publish the solution anonymously, but the brilliant work makes his identity obvious, and when Bernoulli saw the solution he is famously quoted as saying, “We recognize the lion by his claw.”
1886
Karl Benz patents the first automobile powered by an internal combustion engine. The first public test-drive of the actual vehicle will be on July 3, 1886 in Mannheim, Germany. The one-cylinder engine has a top speed of 16km/h (10 mph).
1926
The Scottish inventor John Logie Baird gives the first public demonstration of a modern television system in London, England. Baird’s invention, called a “televisor,” uses mechanically rotating disks to scan moving images into electronic impulses. The impulses are then transmitted by cable to a screen where images appear low-resolution patterns of light and shadow. Baird’s first televised demonstration depicted the heads of two ventriloquist dummies, which were operated in front of the camera, while the operator remained out of sight.
1962
Ranger 3 is launched on a mission to study the Moon. However, the space probe will miss the moon by twenty-two thousand miles (35,400 km).
1967
The Star Trek episode “Tomorrow is Yesterday” first airs. (No. 19) In it, the crew of the Enterprise is flung back in time to the sixties, where they must correct the damage they have caused to the timeline. Memory Alpha entry
1970
The International Business Machines (IBM) Data Processing Division (DPD) introduces the IBM 2721 portable audio terminal which allows users to interface with an IBM System/360 over a phone line.
Relaunch of local Atlanta television station WTCG, bought by Ted Turner, as WTBS. It will form the basis of the first satellite-delivered superstation.
1978
Frank Herbert completes his novel Destination: Void.
1981
A day before the lawsuit brought by Greyhound against International Business Machines (IBM) alleging antitrust violations begins, the two companies announce a settlement. IBM agrees to pay Greyhound US$17.7 million with no admissions of guilt in exchange for Greyhound dropping their lawsuit. The settlement brings the long line of lawsuits against IBM, which began in 1972, to an end.
1983
Lotus 1-2-3, a spreadsheet program for IBM computers, is released by The Lotus Development Corporation, which was founded by Mitchell Kapor, a friend of the developers of VisiCalc, the first “killer ap“. Lotus will begin outselling the popular VisiCalc by the end of the year, and for several years, it will be the leading spreadsheet software for the DOS operating system. It’s popularity is a major factor in the success of the the IBM PC in business. Unlike Microsoft Multiplan, its design is extremely similar to VisiCalc. It is free of notable bugs, and its performance is extremely efficient because it is written entirely in assembly language, bypassing the slower DOS screen input/output functions in favor of writing directly to memory-mapped video display hardware.
1987
Enix releases Dragon Quest II for the Famicom in Japan.
1989
AT&T reports a fiscal loss of US$1.67 billion dollars in 1988. It is the first fiscal loss in one hundred three years.
1994
Babylon 5 premieres as a weekly series in the United States with the episode “Midnight on the Firing Line.” (No. 101) In it, the Narn attack a Centauri colony, and ambassadors Londo and G’Kar nearly come to blows over the issue. Meanwhile, the station crew receive news that raiders are attacking transport ships en route to the station. The series will run for five seasons and a total of 110 episodes. The series will stand out for being planned from its conception to center around a single great story arc, a exception to the normal episodic conventions of the sci-fi genre. Lurker’s Guide entry TV.com Entry
The first version of the Doom Editing Utility, a utility developed by Doom fans for creating new game levels, is released on the Internet.
1995
Nintendo releases the boxing game Super Punch-Out!! for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) in Europe.
1996
Sega releases the fighting game Virtua Fighter 2 for the Sega Saturn in Europe.
1997
At the Macworld Conference & Expo, Steven Jobs announces Allegro, Mac OS 8, Rhapsody, and Sonata, as well as discussing NeXT and the general business outlook of Apple Computer. Jobs has officially returned to Apple as an “advisor” as part of a deal with Job’s company NeXT. Visit the official website of the Macworld Conference.
1998
Compaq Computer announces the acquistion of Digital Equipment Corporation for US$9.6 billion. It is the largest acquisition in the history of the computer industry.
Intel releases the 333MHz Pentium II processor, featuring MMX instructions, a 66MHz bus, and a 512KB Level-2 cache operating at 167MHz. It is the first Pentium II processor manufactured with Intel’s advanced 0.25 micron CMOS process. Code-name: Deschutes Price: US$722 in 1000 chip quantities
The website of Homeguard Inc. is hacked by “XHN”. View an archived version of the defaced website.
1999
Konami releases Castlevania 64 for the Nintendo 64“>Nintendo 64. Castlevania 64 is the eleventh game to bear the Castlevania name, but the fifteenth game in the series, all of which are loosely based on Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula. Castlevania 64 is the first game in the series to implement three dimensional graphics. Visit the game’s official website. ESRB: T (Teen)
2000
The W3C releases Extensible HyperText Markup Language (XHTML).
2001
Hackers deface the official Vatican Radio website.
Season 1.0 of BattleBots premieres on The Comedy Network in Canada. Visit the official Battlebots website.
2002
The Andromeda episode “Bunker Hill” first airs. (No. 211) In it, Dylan and his makeshift fleet engage the Drago-Kazov fleet while Harper and Rommie return to Earth, but the situation becomes dangerous when Dylan discovers that the opposing fleet to larger than he expected.
2003
The chess match between Garry Kasparov and Deep Junior 7 begins in New York with Kasparov winning the first game. Deep Junior will win the third game, and the other four games will end in draws, leaving the match a draw on February 7, 2003. This match is the first competition between a man and a machine sanctioned by FIDE (World Chess Federation). Deep Junior was programed over ten years by Amir Ban and Shay Bushinksy of Tel Aviv. It is capable of evaluating three million moves a second, fifteen moves deep.
2004
Mydoom, also known as Novarg, is first detected. It will rapidly become the fastest-spreading e-mail worm in history, shattering the record previously held by the Sobig worm. Once infected, approximately a quarter of infected computers become part of a massive distributed denial-of-service attack against the SCO group. Many will later speculate that the worm was written on commission, by a profession Russian programmer, and in retaliation against the SCO Group for its recent legal actions again Linux, though none of this speculation will ever be definitively confirmed. The worm is named by Craig Schmugar of McAfee, one of the earliest professionals to discoverer the worm. He named it for a line of code that included the word “mydom”. He will later be quoted in Newsweek as explaining that, “It was evident early on that this would be very big. I thought having ‘doom’ in the name would be appropriate.”
Version 3.0.1 of the Fermi Linux LTS operating system, “Feynman,” is released. Visit the official Fermi Linux Website.
2005
Mongoose Publishing releases The Quintessential Bard II: Advanced Tactics by G. Hanrahan, an expansion for the Dungeons & Dragons d20 3.5 fantasy roleplaying game, as a paperback. (ISBN-10: 1904854370) Length: 128 pages
Sun Microsystems releases 1,673 patents to open-source developers working on OpenSolaris, following the release of the source code to Solaris 10. It is the largest single release of patents into open source in history. Read more at the official Sun Microsystems website.
2006
The city of Los Angeles files a lawsuit against Take-Two Interactive, the publisher of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, accusing the company of failing to disclose the game’s sexual content, particularly the Hot Coffee minigame.
Jeffrey Brett Goodin, age 45, is arrested on federal charges alleging that he sent thousands of e-mails to America Online users that appeared to be from AOL’s Billing Department which prompted subscribers to send personal information and credit card numbers, which were later used by the defendant to make unauthorized purchases. Read more at the US Department of Justice’s website.
Sony announces that it will discontinue production of the AIBO (Artificial Intelligence roBOt) robotic pet dog.
Western Union discontinues its telegram service.
2007
The first Best Buy in China holds its grand opening. The company claims that it is the largest Best Buy in the world.
Gen Con announces that it is canceling its annual Anaheim show, Gen Con So Cal, due to a lack of growth in the event’s attendance in the face of competing shows’ growth. Visit the official Gen Con website.
MGM releases the fantasy action film Blood and Chocolate, directed by Katja von Garnier and starring Agnes Bruckner, Hugh Dancy, Olivier Martinez, and Bryan Dick, to 1,200 US theaters. In it, a young teenage werewolf is torn between honoring her family’s secret and her love for a man. The film will be a financial failure at the box office, grossing only US$2,074,300 domestically in its opening weekend. Visit the film’s official website. IMDB listing MPAA Rating: PG-13 Running Time: 1 hr 38 min
Nintendo releases racing game Mario Kart 64 for the Virtual Console in PAL regions. OFLC: G
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