The Great Geek Manual

1874
After much preparation at home and abroad, the Philadelphia Zoo, the first zoological gardens in the United States opens to the public with several hundred native and exotic specimens on the grounds of Solitude, the last estate in the area owned by the Penn family, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was originally chartered by the Pennsylvania state legislature on March 21, 1859 as the Zoological Society of Philadelphia whose core purpose is to oversee “the purchase and collection of living wild and other animals” and “for the instruction and recreation of the people.” Rumors of a civil war make it a difficult time for private undertakings, and delayed the opening. In 1875, this zoo will become the first US zoo to exhibit a male Indian rhinoceros.

1881
The first international telephone call is made between Calais, Maine in the United States and St. Stephen, New Brunswick in Canada.

1886
The first Linotype machine to be put into commercial use in the US is installed at the Tribune newspaper in New York City. It will be immediately successful. By the end of 1886, a dozen of the machine will be put to use by the Tribune. Within a decade, thousands of Linotype machines will be in use around the world. With a Linotype machine one keyboard operator can cast a line of type at a time, doing the work of the three men required to hand-set the type of other printing presses. It is because the machine sets type one line at a time that Whitelaw Reid, the editor of the New York Tribune, gave the Linotype its name. The machine was invented, patented, and improve by Ottmar Mergenthaler.

1908
SOS is adopted as the international Distress signal.

1909
The third revision of US copyright law goes into effect. In this revision the term of statutory protection for a copyrighted work is now measured from the date of the publication of the work, rather than at the time of the creation of the work. Copyright can now be renewed for up to twenty-eight years, twice the previous fourteen year limit.

1910
The first completely automatic bread baking plant in the US is opened by the Ward Baking Company of Chicago, Illinois. Neither the dough nor the bread is touched by a human hand until it exits at the wrapping machine. With several plants, this becomes one of the largest baking companies of the twentieth century. A 1915 publication will describe the Bronx, New York plant’s operation. “Flour was winnowed to remove impurities, piped to huge tanks to be combined with water and other ingredients and allowed to stand for a time to “ripen.” Next, the dough traveled to large mixers, was kneaded, allowed to rise in a huge trough, then mechanically split into loaf pans, conveyed slowly through an oven and wrapped.”

1923
AT&T forms the first US radio network by linking WEAF New York and WMAF in Boston, Massachusetts.

1934
The Communications Act of 1934 becomes law. Approved by President Roosevelt, this Act brings interstate telephone business under the regulation of the Federal Communications Commission rather than the Interstate Commerce Commission. Read the Communications Act of 1934 in PDF format at the FCC website.

The first X-ray photograph of an entire body is taken in a one-second exposure, using ordinary clinical conditions such as would exist at an average hospital, is taken in Rochester, New York by Arthur W. Fuchs of the Eastman Kodak Company. A selective filter is used for the first time, and the film size was 32 inches by 72 inches. It will be exhibited by the Chicago Roentgen Society at the Century of Progress Exhibition in Chicago, Illinois.

1941
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) adopts the proposals of the National Television Standards Committee (NTSC) for US monochrome television with 525 lines, a 4:3 aspect ratio. and 6MHz of channel bandwidth. The FCC also grants the first commercial television licences to ten CBS and NBC stations.

The CBS station in New York changes its call sign to WCBW (later call WCBS-TV) and goes on the air with the first news telecast at 2:30pm

W2XBS New York NY becomes a commercial station, changing its call to WNBT (later WRCA-TV and then WNBC-TV), when it airs the world’s first (legal) television commercial. The commercial air at 1:29:10pm, just before the General Mills-sponsored baseball game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Philadelphia Phillies, which was immediately followed by the “Sunoco Newscast” with Lowell Thomas. The ten second advertisement for Bulova clocks and watches consists of the image of a clock and a map of the United States, with a voice-over that announces, “America runs on Bulova time.” It cost the Woodside-based company less than ten dollars. At 9:15 p.m., “Uncle Jims Question Bee,” hosted by Bill Slater and sponsored by Spry, makes its one-and-only appearance and, at 9:30, Ralph Edwards hosts “Truth Or Consequences,” which is simulcast on radio and TV and is sponsored by Ivory Soap. This is the first game show broadcast on TV.

>>> Blogger’s Note: I can’t find a definitive source for the time of the WNBT baseball game which was proceeded by the first commercial advertisement. It was either 1:29:10pm or 2:29:10pm in its relative time zone.

1956
Columbia Pictures releases the science fiction film Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, also known as Invasion of the Flying Saucers, to theaters. The film is directed by Fred Sears and stars Hugh Marlowe and Joan Taylor. It is based on the novel Flying Saucers from Outer Space by Donald Kehoe. In the film, “Project Skyhook,” a U.S. effort to launch a dozen satellites, is visited by a flying saucer. A misunderstanding leads to the aliens being fired on, and they respond by immediately attacking in retaliation. The sequence of events quickly spirals out of control and leads to a full scale invasion. Many future science fiction films will pay homage to this film, including Independence Day. IMDB listing Length: 1 hr 23 mins

1958
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) links television broadcasting across Canada via microwave. Stretching four thousand miles from Sydney on Cape Breton Island to Victoria on Vancouver Island, it is the longest television network in the world. The seventy mile stretch across the Cabot Strait to Newfoundland will be completed within the next year. The completion of coast-to-coast links across Canada is marked by a special program.

1966
First color television transmission in Canada is broadcast from Toronto.

1967
BBC2 begins broadcasting the first color television transmissions in the UK from six main transmitters. Color programming is limited during this introductory phase and is initially dominated by coverage of the Wimbledon tennis tournament.

1970
The British Board of Film Censors introduces (BBFC) a new classification: AA. This rating bars children under the age of fourteen from exhibitions. A, U, and X certificates remain in force, although the age limit for X films is raised from sixteen to eighteen.

The first commercial offering of Picturephone service is introduced in downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

1972
The Sunday Cinema Act comes into effect in the UK, allowing cinemas to open on Sundays under normal licensing conditions.

1975
BASIC officially ships as version 2.0 in both 4K and 8K editions.

1977
FORTRAN-80, Microsoft’s second language product, is released.

1979
Sony introduces the Walkman in Japan. The first model is the blue-and-silver TPS-L2 pocket-sized audio cassette player with earphones.

1981
Microsoft reorganizes into Microsoft Incorporated, with Bill Gates as President and Chairman, and Paul Allen as Executive Vice President. The company’s initial shareholders are: Bill Gates (53%), Paul Allen (31%), Steve Ballmer (8%), Vern Raburn (4%), Charles Simonyi (1.5%), and Gordon Letwin (1.5%).

1983
Cinematronics releases Dragon’s Lair to arcades. It is the first laser-disc based coin-operated arcade game. Cost per play is fifty cents. Advanced Microcomputer Systems designed the game, with animation provided by Don Bluth Animations. Each machine costs about US$5,500.

1984
The dystopian cyberpunk novel Neuromancer by William Gibson is published. It is the first book of the Sprawl trilogy. The book will win the “triple crown” of science-fiction: the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, and the Philip K. Dick Award. These awards will legitimize cyberpunk as a mainstream branch of science fiction literature. Neuromancer tells the story of Case, an out-of-work computer hacker hired by an unknown patron to participate in a seemingly impossible crime. The novel examines the concepts of artificial intelligence, cyberspace, genetic engineering, virtual reality, and multinational corporations overpowering the traditional nation-state long before these ideas will became fashionable in popular culture. Read a study guide for Neuromancer written by Paul Brians of Washington State University. Visit the book’s website.

The PG-13 rating is introduced by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) to address the issue of the increasing number of films that straddled the PG and R ratings, such as Watership Down, an 1978 animated film that had featured explicit violence. The first widely distributed PG-13 film will be Red Dawn on August 10, 1984.

1985
Fidonet BBS Sysop Bob Hartman announces that he has received permission from his company to hook his FidoNet BBS to their USENET Newsfeed, allowing the Fidonet Network to read and post on Usenet. His connection is called the “UN*X Gateway”.

1991
Apogee Software releases the side-scrolling shooter Duke Nukem for MS-DOS. The game was notable in its time because of its smart level design which allows very fast gameplay. The graphics borrow heavily from other games, such as Turrican and the PC version of Mega Man, and a longstanding rumor is that originally Apogee had planned to port Mega Man to the PC, but couldn’t secure the rights. Read more about the history of Duke Nukem at GameSpot. Visit the game’s official website.

A switching station phone software crash affects Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, and Washington. Read more about the incident in Bruce Sterling’s The Hacker Crackdown.

1993
Version 2.3a of the Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) encryption program is released. It will become the first global cryptography standard.

1996
Corel releases version 4.00 of Paint Shop Pro, a bitmap graphics editor and vector graphics editor for Windows. This was the first 32-bit release of Paint Shop, but version 3.12 will still be available for download for quite some time. Visit Corel’s website.

1997
American Airlines becomes the first United States air carrier to place an automatic external defibrillator (AED) on each of its fleet of seven hundred aircraft to provide immediate coronary care to in-flight heart-attack victims.

1998
Motorola, Packard Instrument Company, and the United States government’s Argonne National Laboratory jointly announce plans to produce biochips. The chips make use of a micro-gel technology in which chemical compounds can be tested. The chips are planned primarily for the medical and agriculture industries.

Touchstone Pictures releases the sci-fi film Armageddon, directed by Michael Bay and starring Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck, Liv Tyler, Billy Bob Thornton, Will Patton, Steve Buscemi, Michael Clarke Duncan, Ken Campbell, Owen Wilson, William Fichtner, and Peter Stormare, is released to 3,127 US theaters. After New York City is damaged by hundreds of small meteorites, NASA discovers that an asteroid the size of Texas is on a collision course with Earth. They recruit the best deep core driller in the world, Harry Stamper, to train astronauts who will go to the asteroid, drill into the center and detonate a nuclear warhead to destroy the asteroid. Only, Harry can’t train men how to drill in ten days, so NASA trains his team of roughnecks to be astronauts instead. The film is full of spectacular computer generated scenes of asteroids destroying cities. Produced on a budget of US$140 million, the film will gross US$36,089,972 domestically in its opening weekend. IMDB listing (MPAA Rating: PG-13) Running Time: 2 hrs 24 mins

1999
Apple Computer files a lawsuit against Future Power and Daewoo over a recently introduced personal computer that looks nearly identical to the Apple iMac.

2000
Cerulean Studios first releases Trillian, a proprietary multiprotocol instant messaging (IM) application. Trillian can connect to AIM, ICQ, IRC, Windows Live Messenger, and Yahoo! Messenger networks. Visit Cerulean Studio’s website.

The PhpBB Group, which consists of founder James Atkinson, Nathan Codding, and John Abela, releases a fully-functional, pre-release version of phpBB 1.0.0. PhpBB is a popular internet forum package written in PHP. The full release of 1.0.0 will be made on December 9th. Visit the software’s official website.

2002
Apple Computer acquires the Emagic company, maker of the Logic audio software.

2003
Blizzard Entertainment releases Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne expansion pack for Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos. The upgrade includes an additional hero for each race and two to three new units per race, four new campaigns, a new neutral race (the Naga), five neutral heroes, and the ability to build a shop and various other improvements such as the ability to queue upgrades.

A Kazakhstan hacker named Oleg Zezev, also known as “Alex,” is sentenced in Manhattan federal court to over four years (51 months) in prison for extortion and computer hacking. The sentence, imposed by United States District Judge Kimba M. Wood is one of the longest ever imposed for a computer intrusion charge. Zezev was convicted for stealing confidential customer information from the Bloomberg financial information and blackmailing Bloomberg L.P. founder, Michael Bloomberg for US$200,000.

2004
The Cassini-Huygens spacecraft performs the SOI (Saturn Orbit Insertion) maneuver and enters into orbit around Saturn, becoming the first space probe to do so. Before the SOI, Cassini had already studied the system extensively. In June 2004, it had conducted a close flyby of Phoebe, sending back high-resolution images and data.

Microsoft launches a technology preview of their own MSN search engine. They will formally switched from displaying Yahoo! search results to their own in-house technology on January 31st, 2005. Visit the official MSN website.

Version 1.00 of IM2, a multiprotocol instant messaging (IM) application for Microsoft Windows that allows users to chat across all major IM networks, is released. IM2 can connect to AOL Instant Messenger, ICQ, IRC, MSN Messenger, and Yahoo! Messenger networks. Visit the software’s official website.

2005
XM Satellite Radio announces that it has added more than 640,000 subscribers in the second quarter of 2005, bringing their total subscriber base to over 4.4 million.

2006
After twenty-two alpha and beta releases and three release candidates, the UseBB Team releases version 1.0 of UseBB, an open source forum system written in PHP. Visit the software’s official website.

Planamesa Software releases NeoOffice 2.0 Alpha 4. NeoOffice is a fork of the free open source OpenOffice.org office suite that is ported to Mac OS X. Visit the software’s official website.