The Great Geek Manual

1873
Pierre-Jules Hetzel publishes Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne in French. Download it at Project Gutenberg.

1883
James Ritty and John Birch a U.S. patent for the first cash register.

1910
Georges Rignoux of La Rochelle, France describes a primitive “television” system using a matrix of sixty-four photocells to producing a limited grey scale picture. Rignoux had developed the system over the course of several months, with several successful practical experiments, including the first demonstration of the instantaneous transmission of black and white still images in 1909.

1933
The Lone Ranger premieres on the radio WXYZ in Detroit, Michigan. The radio serial will run for thirteen consecutive years with a total of 2,956 episodes. The western adventures of the masked Texas Ranger will inspire the creation of a bevy of future super heroes, and the show’s success will pave the way for their popularization in mainstream media.

1947
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules that granting CBS approval for their new color television system would be premature and that the system requires further testing.

1950
United States President Harry Truman orders the development of the hydrogen fusion bomb, otherwise known as the “H-bomb.” The codename “Super” will later be given to the project to reflected the superiority of thermonuclear devices over earlier fission bombs used at the end of World War II.

1952
Two new Mersenne primes numbers (M₅₂₁ and M₆₀₇) are discovered by researchers using the Standards Western Automatic Computer (SWAC) to run a program written by Raphael Robinson for the first time. These are the first prime numbers ever discovered using computer software. The first of the two numbers, M₅₂₁, will consist of 157 digits and the second, M₆₀₇, will consist of 183 digits. Three more primes will be discovered on June 25 and one more will be discovered on both October 7 and October 9 using the same method.

1953
The first television test transmissions in Norway are broadcast.

1957
The first external artificial pacemaker with an internal heart electrode is put into use. In order to maintain a patient’s heartbeat rhythm, an electrode is sewn to the wall of the patient’s heart and connected through the chest to an external desktop pulse generator. The device turns out to be a poor solution, though. Not only is the equipment bulky, infections will frequently occur along the electrode wires, and the device requires uninterrupted electrical supply.

1964
The U.S. Hard Lander, Ranger 6, is launched from Cape Canaveral.

1974
Atari begins using “Innovative leisure” as the company slogan. Atari will later apply for to trademark the term in April 1976 and be granted a trademark in February 1977.

Atari introduces Superpong.

1979
The International Business Machines (IBM) Data Processing Division (DPD) introduces two new processors, the IBM 4331 and IBM 4341, for intermediately sized computers.

1981
Universal Pictures releases the science fiction comedy film The Incredible Shrinking Woman, directed by Joel Schumacher and starring Lily Tomlin, Charles Grodin, Ned Beatty, John Glover, and Elizabeth Wilson, to 789 U.S. theaters. In it, a woman is exposed to chemicals that make her begin to physically shrink. It will gross US$4,279,264 domestically in its opening weekend. IMDB listing (MPAA Rating: PG) Running Time: 1 hr 28 mins

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