1873
Pierre-Jules Hetzel publishes Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne in French. Download it at Project Gutenberg.
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 was sewn to the wall of the patient’s heart and connected through the chest to an external desktop pulse generator. The bulky equipment was a poor solution. Not only was the equipment bulky, infections frequently occurred along the electrode wires, and the device required uninterrupted in the house electricity.
1964
The US Hard Lander, Ranger 6, is launched.
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 US 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
1982
Tim Vargo, age 20, scores 51,957,175 points on Atari’s Missile Command after playing the game for thirty hours and forty minutes at the Play Palace arcade in Kent, Ohio.
1989
The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Unnatural Selection” first airs. (No. 207) In it, the Enterprise responds to the USS Lantree’s distress signal. The Lantree’s crew are all suffering from rapid aging and it falls to the Enterprise to uncover its cause before its too late. Memory Alpha entry
The USSR Phobos 2 Flyby/Lander, launched July 12, 1988, arrives at Mars and enters orbit. The orbiter will proceed to pass within eight hundred kilometers of Phobos, before failing.
1993
Rusty & Edie’s BBS of Boardman, Ohio, is raided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for allegedly distributing copyrighted software programs. The FBI seize computers, hard drives, and telecommunications equipment along with financial records. The raid is the result of an on-going collaboration with the Software Publishers Association (SPA), which initiated the investigation after receiving complaints from a number of SPA members that their software was being illegally distributed on the bulletin board system (BBS). Before the raid dismantled it, Rusty & Edie’s was one of the largest private bulletin boards in the US. with one hundred twenty-four nodes and over fourteen thousand subscribers calling it at a rate of over four thousand connections a day. In all the BBS had logged over 3.4 million phone calls from its in 1987 up to the time of the raid. The system includes a staggering nineteen gigabytes of storage holding over a hundred thousand files available to download. Read more about Rusty & Edie’s at Textfiles.com. Visit the official website of the Software Publishers Association.
1996
Comet Hyakutake, otherwise dubbed “The Great Comet of 1996″, is discovered by Japanese amateur astronomer Yuji Hyakutake.
1997
Samsung Electronics of South Korea announces that it will acquire the remaining fifty-one percent of the personal computer manufacturer AST Research for US$162 million. Visit the official Samsung website.
Yahoo! launches Yahoo! Singapore.
1998
The website of All Seasons Travel is hacked by “Claire Danes”. View an archived version of the defaced website.
The website of the Calagary Unix Users Group is hacked by “sreality & th4 #pascal crew”. View an archived version of the defaced website.
1999
The website of the Belgian ISP Interline is hacked by “|ndig00, f0bic & jay”. View an archived version of the defaced website.
2000
An unprecedented number of advertisements for Internet companies air during Super Bowl XXXIV. Some of the advertisements cost as much as US$3 million for a thirty-second spot. Among the advertisers are Angeltips.com, AutoTrader.com, Britannica.com, Computer.com, DowJones.com, E-Trade, HotJobs.com, Kforce.com, LastMinuteTravel.com, LifeMinders.com, Monster.com, Netpliance.com, OnMoney.com, OurBeginning.com, Pets.com, Screamingmedia.com, and WebMD.
The website of CCPM in Mexico is hacked by “alt3kx_h3z”. View an archived version of the defaced website.
2001
Amazon.com announces its intentions to cut up to 1,300 jobs or about fifteen percent of its work in the hope of turning a profit by the end of the year. Visit the official Amazon.com website.
Del Rey publishes the science fiction novel Aftershocks by Harry Turtledove as a hardcover. (ISBN-10: 0345430212) It is the third book in the Colonization series. Visit the author’s official website. Length: 496 pages
Intel introduces the ultra low voltage 500MHz mobile Pentium III processor, featuring a 128KB Level-2 cache, a 100MHz front-side bus, and SpeedStep technology, which allows the processor to operate at 300MHz when the computer is running on battery power. Price: US$208 in 1000-unit quantities
Per Lidén and the CRUX Linux community release version 0.5.1 of the CRUX operating system. CRUX is a lightweight, i686-optimized Linux distribution for advaced Linux users. Visit the official CRUX website.
Yahoo! releases Yahoo! Groups. Visit the official website of Yahoo! Groups.
2002
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) releases the 1.1GHz and 1.2GHz Duron processors, featuring a 64KB Level-2 Cache, a 200MHz front-side bus, and PowerNow technology. Prices: US$130 and US$160, respectively
Sega officially announces that the Dreamcast video game system will be discontinued.
The Star Trek: Enterprise episode “Sleeping Dogs” first airs. (No. 114) In it, Hoshi, Malcolm, and T’Pol board a doomed Klingon scout ship in a decaying orbit around a gas giant. Memory Alpha entry
The top-level domain (TLD) .coop opens for registration. Visit the official website of the .coop registrar.
2003
Capcom releases Devil May Cry 2 for the PlayStation 2 in Japan. Visit the game’s official website.
MindArk launches the massively multiplayer online first-person shooter (MMOFPS) Entropia Universe for Windows. The game is notable for being free with no subscription fees while incorporating a real cash economy. Player can convert money earned in game, called Project Entropia Dollars (PED), into real US currency. It will make news in both 2004 and 2008 for setting the world record for the most expensive virtual objects ever sold. Visit the official website of the Entropia Universe.
2004
Gateway Computers acquires eMachines, a manufacturer of low-cost personal computers. Visit the official website of eMachines.
2006
Microsoft releases a mandatory update for Xbox Live on the Xbox 360. The company claims the update contains bugfixes and improvements, however, Larry “Major Nelson” Hryb, Xbox Live director of programming, admits that “the true purpose of this update was to halt the progress of the modding community”.
The SeaMonkey Council releases version 1.0 of the SeaMonkey cross-platform internet suite. The suite includes a browser based on Netscape, an HTML editor, a mail client, and a newsgroup client. Visit the official website of the SeaMonkey Project.
2007
Apple releases the iPod shuffle in a variety of colors.
Eidos Interactive releases the real-time tactics game Battlestations: Midway for personal computers and the Xbox 360. Visit the game’s official website. ESRB: T (Teen)
Microsoft announced that the 113 titles available for the Xbox Live Arcade on the Xbox 360 have been downloaded over twenty million times. Visit the official Xbox Live Arcade website.
Microsoft releases Office 2007 to the general public. Visit the official Microsoft Office website.
Microsoft releases Microsoft Windows Vista to the general public. The system is available is several editions, including: Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, Enterprise, Ultimate, Home Basic N, and Business N. The release comes more than five years after the release of the Windows XP operating system. Visit the official Windows Vista website. Code-name: “Longhorn”
Sega releases the platform game Sonic the Hedgehog for the PlayStation 3 in the US. Visit the game’s official website. ESRB: E10+ (Everyone)
Sony Online Entertainment and Sigil Games Online launch the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) Vanguard: Saga of Heroes for Windows. Visit the game’s official website. ESRB: T (Teen)
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