1866
Cyrus West Field finally succeeds, after three failures, to lay the first underwater transatlantic telegraph cable. The Atlantic Cable spans the 1,686 miles across the Atlantic Ocean between Valentia, Ireland and Heart’s Content, Newfoundland. Massachusetts merchant and financier Cyrus West Field first proposed laying a 2,000-mile copper cable along the ocean bottom from Newfoundland to Ireland in 1854, but the first three attempts ended in broken cables and failure. Field’s persistence finally paid off when the steamship SS Great Eastern, the largest ship afloat, successfully laid the cable along the level, sandy bottom of the North Atlantic. The cable will remain in use for nearly a century, and many future telecommunication historians will mark its completion as the dawn of the information age.
1875
Elisha Gray of Chicago, Illinois is granted a patent for “methods of transmitting musical impressions or sounds telegraphically,” the acoustic telegraph. (US No. 166,095, -6)
1888
The first electric automobile, designed by Philip W. Pratt, is demonstrated in Boston, Massachusetts. The three-wheeled vehicle is powered by six Electrical Accumulator Company cells, which weigh ninety pounds.
1909
In Fort Myer, Virginia, Orville Wright sets a record for the longest sustained flight in the army’s first airplane after remaining in the air for 1 hour, 12 minutes and 40. In his exhaustion from the flight, he crash-landed the plane, but he and his passenger were uninjured.
1940
Warner Brothers releases the Merrie Melodies animated short film Wild Hare, directed by Tex Avery, is released by Warner Bros. This short introduces Bugs Bunny who will appear in over one hundred sixty cartoons over the next twenty-four years. It also introduces his catchphrase, “What’s up, doc?”
1969
NASA launches the Pioneer 10, which will become the first spacecraft to travel through an asteroid belt, to directly observe the planet Jupiter, and to leave the solar system.
1981
Microsoft acquires the full rights to the 86-DOS operating system (v 1.14) from Seattle Computer Products (SCP) for fifty thousand dollars, and renames the system MS-DOS. The payment is in addition to the twenty-five thousand dollars Microsoft had previously paid for the rights to market the system to computer manufacturers. The acquistion comes just a little more than two weeks before International Business Machines (IBM) will begin selling computers featuring MS-DOS. SCP will later bring a lawsuit again Microsoft, alleging the company of defrauding SCP by concealing the fact that IBM was one of software’s licensees. The lawsuit will later settled for one million dollars in SCP’s favor, but by that time, MS-DOS will have been responsible for about half of Microsoft’s sixty-one million dollars of annual revenue. The system, which was initially called QDOS as an acronym for “Quick and Dirty Operating System,” was written by Tim Paterson, age 22, as a substitute for Digital Research’s CP/M-86 operating system.
1988
Radio Shack announces the Tandy 1000 SL computer, featuring a proprietary keyboard port, two joystick ports, a digital monitor connector, a 5.25 disk drive, an additional bay for the installation of a second disk drive, 128k of memory, MS-DOS 2.11, and DeskMate 1.0.
1989
Lotus Development releases the spreadsheet application Lotus 1-2-3 Release 2.2 for MS-DOS. Visit the application’s official website.
1993
Microsoft releases the Windows NT 3.1 operating system, the first release in the Windows NT series. Its name is chosen to match the current version of the 16-bit version of Microsoft Windows. NT contains a new “kernel” at its core of the operating system, unlike Windows 3.x. It is not based on MS-DOS. It is designed to be platform independent. The “Win32″ API was developed for Windows NT, providing a native 32 bit API that programmers use to the 16-bit version of Microsoft Windows would be at home with. Read more a history of Windows products.
1995
U.S. Gold begins shipping the Jaguar version of Flashback dedicated video game console. Price: US$59.99
1997
In an interview published in the Los Angeles Times, former San Jose Police Chief Joseph McNamara argues that “If the Miami Beach Police Department had computer technology as sophisticated as that used in one of the town’s trendy restaurants, fashion designer Gianni Versace would probably still be alive.” The Italian fashion designer to whom he refers, Gianni Versace, was sensationally murdered outside of his home earlier in the summer by serial kill Andrew Cunanan. The information needed by the police to track down Cunanan, data from a pawnbroker, was in their possession, but on paper, awaiting entry into their antiquated computer system.
The sci-fi television series Stargate SG-1 premieres on the Showtime cable channel in the US. In the first two-part episode, Children of the Gods, the Stargate Program is revived when Apophis, an alien of the same race as Ra, comes to Earth through the gate seeking hosts. Jack O’Neill and new recruit Samantha Carter are sent to Abydos to locate Daniel Jackson. Created by Jonathan Glassner and Brad Wright, it starred Richard Dean Anderson, Michael Shanks, Amanda Tapping, Christopher Judge, and Don S. Davis. The show is a spinoff of the film of the same title. GateWorld entry
1999
The Brazilian website of Faenquil is hacked by the hacking group “bl0w team”. View an archived version of the defaced website.
Intel introduces two new processors, including a faster version of its Pentium III at a price lower than its last major upgrade. The new 600MHz Pentium III is priced at US$669, in quantities of 1,000, while Intel’s 550MHz Pentium III still costs US$744.
2000
Microsoft commits to a US$500 million marketing budget to launch its new Xbox video game system within the first eighteen months of its debut. Microsoft also states that about thirty games are under development and that development kits will be sent to about two hundred third-party developers.
Nokia shares lose twenty percent of their value in a single day.
O.J. Simpson establishes a new website at AskOJ.com and hosts an online question-and-answer session for paid participants. Stating that he doesn’t trust television, Simpson explains that the non-profit fund raising event will help answer questions that surround the deaths of his former wife and Ron Goldman.
Version 4.1 of the FreeBSD operating system is released. Visit the official FreeBSD website.
2001
20th Century Fox releases the sci-fi film Planet of the Apes, directed by Tim Burton and starring Mark Wahlberg, Tim Roth, Helena Bonham Carter, Michael Clarke Duncan, and Estella Warren, to 3,500 US theaters. The film is a remake of the 1968 classic of the same title, however, unlike the original, the end of the film does not feature the Statue of Liberty buried in the sand. Instead, it features a sculpture of Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC replaced by a similar monument to the ape General Thade. Produced on a budget of US$100 million, the film will gross US$68,532,960 domestically in its opening weekend. IMDB listing (MPAA Rating: PG-13) Running Time: 1 hr 59 mins
Eric J. Bowden publishes an article on MSNBC, revealing a serious memory allocation loss issue in the Microsoft Windows ME operating system. Bowden dubs the phenomenon “Millennium Alzheimers.”
Studio Ghibli releases the animated feature film Spirited Away, directed by Hayao Miyazaki and starring the vocal talents of Rumi Hiiragi, Miyu Irino, and Mari Natsuki, to Japanese theaters. After its release in the US, the film will go on to become the first anime to win an Academy Award. (MPAA Rating: PG) Running Time: 2 hrs 4 mins
2002
Version 1.1 of the Thief, a popular interface for Internet Chess Servers at Chess Live, is released. Visit the software’s official website.
2004
Microsoft releases Service Pack 1 (SP-1) for Office 2003, containing bug fixes and stability improvements.
Nokia releases the N-Gage QD handheld video game system in the US. It features a 104MHz ARM processor, the Symbian 6.0 operating system, a 176×208 resolution color screen,, a bottom-mounted slot for MMC game cards, an eight-direction game pad, and Bluetooth connectivity. Price: US$199 Weight: 5oz
2005
Microsoft releases version 7.0 Beta 1 of Internet Explorer. This version included support for PNG graphic alpha channels, CSS bug fixes, and tabbed browsing. It ships with Windows Vista Beta 1. Visit the official Internet Explorer website.
NASA grounds the Space Shuttles, pending an investigation of the foam protecting the external fuel tanks. The investigation is precipitated by the previous day’s launch of the Space Shuttle Discovery, during which foam was shed in a manner similar to that which caused the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, though it did not cause any significant damage in the most recent incident. (STS-114)
2006
Intel introduces Core 2 Duo 64-bit processors and projects that approximately ninety percent of its laptops will feature Intel Core 2 processors by the second quarter of 2007.
Intel releases the Core 2 Duo E6700 processor, featuring dual processing cores, 4MB shared L2 cache, a 2.66 GHz clock speed, and a 1066MHz front-side bus at the annual Fragapalooza gaming festival in Edmonton, Canada. They are the company’s first processors to bear the “Core 2 Duo” brand, and Intel boasts that they will provide a forty percent increase in performance over their predecessors, the Pentium D processors, while consuming forty percent less power. Code name: Conroe Price: US$530
Intel releases the Core 2 Extreme X6800 processor, featuring dual processing cores, 4MB shared L2 cache, a 2.93 GHz clock speed, a 1066MHz 128-bit front side bus, 291 million transistors, and a maximum addressable memory of 8GB. Price: US$999
Intel releases the Core 2 Duo processor, models E6300, E6400, and E6600. All have 1066MHz front-side buses. Models E6300 and E6400 have 2 MB cache, the E6600 has 4 MB cache. The processors’ clock speeds are 1.86GHz, 2.13GHz, and 2.4GHz, respectively. Code name: Conroe Price: US$183, US$224, and US$316, respectively
The reality television series Who Wants to Be a Superhero? premieres on the Sci Fi Channel. Stan Lee hosts the show in which contestants dress up as comic book super heroes of that they themselves have invented. The grand prize for winning is to have his or her character star in a Dark Horse Comics comic book written by Lee and an original movie to be aired on the Sci Fi Channel.
Toshiba Corp. releases the RD-A1, the first digital video recorder to integrate both a hard disk and DVD recorder. The system features a one-terabyte hard drive capable of recording up to 130 hours of high-definition broadcasts and the ability to burn up to 230 minutes of HD video to an HD DVD Disc. Read more at HDTV Magazine.
2007
The first webisode of the online sitcom The Guild, starring Felicia Day, is posted online. The series, which will be posted to effinfunny.com, iTunes, and YouTube.com, follows the antics of a World of Warcraft gamer who players under the handle Codex and her guild, “The Knights of Good,” the members of which she meets for the first time when one of them shows up on her doorstep expecting to become her live-in boyfriend. The first season of the series will run for twelve episodes, including two Christmas specials. Visit the official website of The Guild.
An independent NASA review panel discovers that astronauts were allowed to fly despite being intoxicated in at least two occasions. Read more at the BBC.
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