1595
Many historians believe that this is the date on which the William Shakespeare play Romeo and Juliet is first performed.
1802
John J. Beckley became the first Librarian of the U.S. Congress. Visit the official website of the Library of Congress.
1845
The Edgar Allen Poe poem The Raven is published in the New York Evening Mirror for the first time anywhere.
1957
General Electric (GE) and the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) meet to select a format for ERMA Magnetic Ink Character Recognition (MICR) encoding on checks. The ERMA or Electronic Recording Machine – Accounting, is a system commissioned by the Bank of America, to move towards automating check handling. International Business Machines (IBM) makes a strong case for placing the encoding along the top of a checks, but GE and SRI had conducted a series of tests that demonstrated the advantage of placing the encoding along the bottom of checks.
1959
American Airlines begins offering the first jet passenger service across the United States with a fleet of Boeing 707 aircraft. Visit the official website of American Airlines.
1964
Columbia Pictures releases the comedy Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, directed by Stanley Kubrick and starring Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Keenan Wynn, Slim Pickens, Peter Bull, James Earl Jones, and Tracy Reed, to US theaters. The film, which is loosely based on the novel Red Alert by Peter George, satirizes the Cold War doctrine of mutually assured destruction. Produced on a budget of US$1.8 million, it will gross US$$9,164,370 domestically. IMDB listing (MPAA Rating: GP) Running Time: 1 hr 33 min
1968
The International Business Machines (IBM) Data Processing Division (DPD) introduces the IBM System/360 Model 85, a high-end addition to the System/360 line, designed to solve complex scientific problems, and the IBM 2420 nine track magnetic tape unit, which operates at twice the speed of previous IBM tape drives.
1987
Microsoft begins shipping Microsoft Word 3.0 for the Macintosh. Visit the official Word website.
1988
New World Pictures releases the science fiction film Hell Comes to Frogtown, directed by Donald G. Jackson and starring Roddy Piper, Sandahl Bergman, Cec Verrell, William Smith, and Rory Calhoun, to US theaters. In it, a survivor living in a post-apocalyptic wasteland must rescue of a group of women from the harem of the mutant tyrant. IMDB listing
Spectrum Holobyte releases the puzzle game Tetris for the Commodore 64 or IBM PC in the US. Tetris is the first entertainment software imported into the US from the Soviet Union. The game was written by Alexi Paszitnov and Vagim Gerasimov at the Computer Center of the USSR Academy of Sciences in Moscow. Visit the official Tetris website. Price: US$24.95 (Commodore 64) or US$34.95 (PC)
1990
Scientists at Bell Labs demonstrate the first all-optical processor.
The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “The High Ground” first airs. (No. 312) In it, Crusher is captured by terrorists who hold her hostage as part of a plot to force the Federation to intervene int their struggle. Memory Alpha entry
1992
Minix creator Andy Tanenbaum posts the infamous “LINUX is obsolete” thread on comp.os.minix at 2:23 pm. Linux creator Linus Torvalds rapidly responds to the posting. The debate between Andy Tanenbaum, the father of MINIX, and Linus Torvalds, the father of Linux, will become a famous historical debate. The thread will be closed by Bill Mitchell on February 10, 1992 at 4:31 pm after seventy-three posts. Read an archive of the original thread at Google.
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