1781
Jonathan Carter Hornblower patents the first compound steam engine. (UK No. 1298) The engine uses two differently sized cylinders to improve upon the efficiency of previous steam engines. Steam within the engine first acts upon the engine’s smaller, high-pressure cylinder, then leaving at a lower pressure, acts upon the second, larger cylinder. Hornblower will be forced to abandon development of the design after Boulton & Watt“>Boulton and Watt claims infringement on an earlier patent, but the principal will be revived even later by Arthur Woolf.
1836
Senator John Ruggles, who will later be dubbed the “Father of the U.S. Patent Office” for his extensive patent legislation, receives patent Number 1 from the U.S. Patent Office at the launch of a new patent numbering system. There had been 9,957 prior unnumbered patents issued by the office. Ruggles’ patent covered a traction wheel for locomotive steam engines to reduce the adverse effects of the weather on the track.
1880
Stephen D. Field of New York City is issued a patent for “propelling railway cars by electromagnetism.” (US No. 229,991) The patent covers the mechanism by which electric street cars could be run from a current generated by a stationary dynamo by conveying electricity down one of the rails and through a metal wheel to the car’s onboard motor, before returning through a second metal wheel to another rail.
1866
The SS Great Eastern embarks from Valentia, Ireland to Heart’s Content, Newfoundland, laying the first Transatlantic undersea telegraph cable. When the final connection is made on July 27, the cable will be capable of transmitting telegraph messages at a rate of seven words per minute.
1897
Guglielmo Marconi receives a patent on his wireless telegraph system. (US No. 586,193)
1919
The first lighter-than-air transatlantic flight is successfully completed.
1938
Television demonstration is arranged at 568 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts by Porter H Evans of the Massachusetts Television Institute at that address. Musical performances in an upstairs area are screened in the auditorium below, which seats 200 patrons paying 25 cents each. No transmission is involved—the studio and auditorium are linked by cable. Although described as a form of television theatre, the display is a conventional television receiver with a vertically mounted tube, the image measuring only 9 ins x 12 ins (23cm x 31cm) being viewed through a mirror in the hinged lid of the cabinet. The system uses a ‘cathovisor’ cathode ray tube, supplied by Baird Television in the UK.
1945
The first atomic bomb arrives partly assembled at its New Mexican test site on Friday the 13th. By Sunday morning, the bomb is assembled and positioned on top of a tower in preparation for the first atomic test.
1960
20th Century Fox releases the sci-fi adventure film The Lost World, directed by Irwin Allen and starring Michael Rennie, Jill St. John, David Hedison, Claude Rains, and Fernando Lamas, to US theaters. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The film centers around monsters created using close-up shots of monitor lizards, iguanas, and crocodiles affixed with miniature horns. The technique will later be dubbed slurpasaur by fans. IMDB listing Length: 1 hr 37 mins
1972
The Japanese sci-fi film The X from Outer Space, directed by Eiji Okada and starring Eiji Okada and Toshiya Wazaki, is released to theaters in Europe. In the film, the spaceship AAB Gamma is dispatched from Japan to land on Mars and investigate reports of UFOs in the area. When the Gamma nears the red planet, it finds a mysterious UFO that coats the Gamma with spores. One of these spores is carried back to Earth, where it grows into the Guilala. The film was produced in response to the popularity of the Godzilla franchise, but it failed to achieve the same cult status. IMDB listing
1977
United Artists releases the spy thriller The Spy Who Loved Me, directed by Lewis Gilbert and starring Roger Moore as James Bond, Barbara Bach, Curd Jürgens, Richard Kiel, is released to US theaters, six days after its UK release. It’s the tenth film in the James Bond series, and the third to star Roger Moore in the role of 007. In this installment, Bond is on a mission to find out how a Royal Navy Polaris submarine carrying sixteen nuclear warheads simply disappeared while on patrol. IMDB listing (MPAA Rating: PG) Running Time: 2 hrs 5 mins
1983
MVS Amusements, Inc. of Indianapollis hosts a barbeque to introduces its new Star Wars coin-operated arcade game from Atari. Over seventy-five arcade operators attend the event.
1984
Universal Studios releases the science fiction film The Last Starfighter, directed by Nick Castle and starring Lance Guest, Robert Preston, Catherine Mary Stewart, and Dan O’Herlihy, to 1,287 US theaters. It is notable for being, along with Disney’s Tron, one of the first to make extensive use of CGI effects. Digital Productions created twenty-seven minutes of effects for the three hundred shots in the film using a Cray X-MP. Each contained an average of a quarter of a million polygons. Produced on a budget of US$15 million, it will gross US$6,011,695 domestically in its opening weekend. IMDB listing (MPAA Rating: PG) Running Time: 1 hr 41 mins
1992
U.S. hardware manufacturer International Business Machines (IBM) announces that it is has entered into an alliance with former competitors Siemens of Germany and Toshiba of Japan in order to develop memory chips. The formation of the international alliance will later be cited as the beginning of a shift in the semiconductor industry towards globalization.
1995
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announces plans to divide the radio spectrum between satellite communications networks and wireless cable television.
The NASA spacecraft Galileo launches a probe towards Jupiter that will become the first Earth probe to penetrate the atmosphere of one of the gas giants. The probe’s mission is to measure the chemical composition, pressure structure, and temperature of the planet’s atmosphere.
The US Justice Department files a brief in New York federal court, asserting that Microsoft’s MSN marketing strategy may be in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act.
1997
The Def Con V convention is held Friday, July 11 through Sunday, July 13 at the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.
2000
Convicted computer hacker Kevin Mitnik, age 36, announces that his court probation officers have agreed to allow him to write columns for a website and consult on a new television series so long as he types his work out with a typewriter. Mitnik’s three-year parole conditions bar him using computers.
Microsoft releases “Whistler,” build 2250 of Windows XP, to testers at the Professional Developers Conference (PDC) in Florida. The version closely resembled Windows 2000 and Windows ME, without many new features. It is, however, the first build to feature Visual Styles and a task-based Control Panel.
Reuters publishes an article written by Christopher Noxon discussing the increasingly popular trend of companies dropping the dot-com suffix from their corporate names. “The dot-com name used to carry real prestige – but that certainly isn’t the case anymore,” comments Michelle Slack, a Jupiter Communications analyst.
2001
Afghanistan’s Taliban regime bans Internet access country-wide, including in Government offices, in an attempt to control political news content.
The Code Red worm is released. It attacks the Index Server ISAPI Extension in Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS). Read more in Security Bulletin MS01-033.
The Def Con 9 convention is held Friday, July 13 through Sunday, July 15, at the Alexis Park Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The Malaysian consumer interest group Consumers Association of Penang (CAP) launches a campaign to keep children from using personal computers, arguing that computers are a poor substitute for human contact.
2003
Yahoo! announces that it will acquire the internet search listing service Overture Services for US$1.63 billion in cash and stock.
2004
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) introduces the 1667MHz Athlon XP-M 2200+, featuring a 512KB level-2 cache.
Google acquires Picasa from Idealab. Picasa is an application for managing and editing digital images. Google will eventually release it as freeware. Visit the application’s official website.
Version 3.08.0 of the O’Caml programming language is released. Visit the official O’Caml website.
Version 4.3.8 of the PHP programming language is released. Visit the official PHP website.
Version 5.0.0 of the PHP programming language is released. Visit the official PHP website.
2005
Fujitsu unveils the world’s first film substrate-based bendable color electronic paper. The thin and flexible electronic paper uses very low power to change screen images, thereby making it ideal for displaying information or advertisements in public areas as a type of new electronic media that can be handled as easily as paper.
2006
Invision Power Services releases version 2.2.2 of the popular commercial Internet forum software Invision Power Board. This version includes more advanced site integration. Visit the software’s official website.
A full-scale version of Twitter, the first micro-blogging service, is publicly launched. The service allows users to post messages of up to 140 characters. The service will explode in popularity, and by March 2009, Alexa will rank the site as the thirtieth most visited site on the web and the third largest social network. Visit the official Twitter website.
Version 2.6.26 of the Linux operating system is released.
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