The Great Geek Manual

June 21st is the summer solstice in the northern hemisphere and the winter solstice in the southern hemisphere.

1768
The first commencement of a US medical college is held at the College of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania. Its Department of Medicine was established in 1765 and was the first medical school in the United States.

1808
French chemist Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac announces the isolation of the element Boron, nine days ahead of Englishman Humphry Davy, who independently separated boron and made his own announcement on June 30, 1808.

1851
Adolf Anderssen and Lionel Kieseritzk play a recreational game of chess, which, by virtue of a series of bold sacrifices, goes down in history as the immortal game, one of the greatest games in chess literature. In the course of the game, Anderssen sacrifices both of his rooks as well as his queen before finally checkmating his opponent with his three remaining minor pieces.

1889
British photographer William Friese-Greene receives a patent for the first cinematograph camera specifically designed to make use of perforated celluloid films, though it only shoots film at a rate of four or five frames per second.

1893
The first Ferris wheel is premiered at Chicago’s Columbian Exposition, America’s third World’s Fair. It was invented by George Washington Ferris, a Pittsburgh bridge builder as an attraction similar to the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France. Ferris’ design features a web of cables rather than rigid spokes in the wheel’s center and two 140 foot steel support towers. It stands 264 feet tall. Each of its thirty-six cars has a sixty passenger capacity, with a one hundred fifty ton total capacity. Its cars and wheels weigh 2,100 tons without passengers, and the levers and other associated machinery required to turn the wheel weigh another 2,200 tons. Its forty-five foot axle is the single largest piece of forged steel in the world. The ride cost fifty cents and made US$726,805.50 during the World’s Fair.

1859
Andrew Lanergan, of Boston, Massachusetts, receives the first patent for a rocket, described as “an improvement in exhibition rockets.” (US No. 24,468) His design allows for the fuse, which he calls the “match,” to be pre-assembled with the rocket. The outer end of the fuse is packed inside a recess at the bottom of the rocket and covered with a light seal which can be easily broken to draw out the fuse as needed. Thus, he claims that the device is less likely to accidentally ignited by falling cinders or sparks falling on exposed fuses.

1948
At 11:15, the first stored-program computer, the Small-Scale Experimental Machine (SSEM), runs its first program at Manchester University in Manchester, England. The event marks the beginning of a new age in computing. Written by Professor Tom Kilburn, the program takes fifty-two minutes to run. The tiny experimental computer, nicknamed the “Manchester Baby” has no keyboard or printer, but it successfully tests a memory system developed at Manchester University in England. The system, which uses cathode-ray tube technology, is the first computer with the ability to store programs, moving technology from an era of calculators into the era of true computers. Previous electronic computers had to be rewired to execute each new problem posed to them. The Manchester computer proves theories set forth by John von Neumann in a report that proposes modifications to ENIAC, the electronic computer built at the University of Pennsylvania in the mid-forties (the same report that proposes the use of a binary rather than digital system). Though Baby is too small to do any work truly useful to the University, its success will prompt the development of the Manchester Mark I, and the later Ferranti Mark I, the first general purpose commercial computer.

The first successful long-playing microgroove phonograph records are introduced to the public at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. Made of nonbreakable Vinilyte plastic, and designed to be played at 33-1/3 rpm. The records were developed by Dr. Peter Goldmark of Columbia Records. The twelve inch records can play twenty-three minutes of music per side, where the earlier 78 rpm record formats could only play four minutes per side. The LP is also an improvement in terms of audio fidelity with quieter playing surfaces. The first LP release features violinist Yehudi Menuhin. Columbia coined the term “LP” and subsequently copyrighted it. Thus, although many other firms could make long-playing records, only Columbia could make an LP. Visit the official Columbia Records website.

1951
CBS increases its color television programing to 4½ hours a week.

1961
The first practical plant for the conversion of seawater to drinking water is dedicated and activated when US President John Kennedy presses a switch installed in his White House office. The plant was built in less than a year at a cost of US$1.5 million in Freeport, Texas by the Dow Chemical Co. The plant is capable of producing about a million gallons of water a day, supplying fresh water to the city of Freeport at a cost of about US$1.25 per thousand gallons. The plant opened on May 8, 1961, by the US Department of the Interior’s Office of Saline Water. The large-scale evaporation method used will later be replaced by reverse osmosis as scientific advances have created polymers suitable for use as filtering membranes.

1969
The final episode of the Doctor Who serial The War Games airs in England. (Serial 050, Episode 10) It is both the final episode to be broadcast in black and white and the last to feature Patrick Troughton as the Doctor.

1979
Sony announces the Walkman tape player to the public in Japan. Before the new player was release, the press lampooned the product, predicting that consumers would never be interested in a tape player that didn’t feature a record function. Other member of the press pointedly reported that Sony had produced thirty thousand Walkman units for sale, despite the fact that the most popular tape recorder on the market had sold fewer than fifteen thousand units. Unphased by the criticism, Sony proceeded to market the device to celebrities and young people across Japan. Less than a month later, the Walkman was sold out. Within ten years, Sony will sell another fifty million and the word “Walkman” will be listed in the Oxford English Dictionary as a term referring to a cassette player. Read more at Lowend Mac.

1981
International Business Machines (IBM) retires the last of its IBM 7030 “Stretch” mainframe computers, which were the company’s first transistorized line of computers. The systems featured a 64-bit word architecture, becoming the first computers to which L.R. Johnson applied the term “architecture.” Read more about the IBM 7030.

1983
In the Netherlands, Philips N.V. and Thomson-Brandt S.A. agree to cooperate to produce cassettes and video game systems.

1985
20th Century Fox releases the science fiction film Cocoon, directed Ron Howard by and starring Don Ameche, Wilford Brimley, Hume Cronyn, and Jessica Tandy, to 1,140 US theaters. The film will gross US$7,936,427 domestically in its opening weekend. IMDB listing (MPAA Rating: PG-13) Running Time: 1 hr 57 mins

Tri-Star Pictures releases the sci-fi horror film Lifeforce, directed by Tobe Hooper and starring Steve Railsback, Peter Firth, Frank Finlay, and Patrick Stewart, to 1,526 US theaters. In the film a space shuttle mission investigating Halley’s Comet brings back a malevolent race of space vampires who transform most of London’s population into zombies. The only survivor of the expedition and British authorities attempt to capture a mysterious but beautiful alien woman who appears responsible. The plot bears some similarities to other zombie movies, such as The Quatermass Experiment and The Omega Man. Produced on a budget of US$25 million, the film will gross US$4,209,136 domestically in its opening weekend. The film opens in fourth place in the box office, losing the head-to-head release battle against the Ron Howard sci-fi film Cocoon. In total, Lifeforce will earn $11,603,545 at the US box office, a poor return on the estimated US$25 million dollar budget. IMDB listing (MPAA Rating: R) Running Time: 1 hr 41 mins

1989
The Tengen version of the puzzle game Tetris is removed from retailers’ shelves and its production is ceased after Judge Fern Smith granted Nintendo an injunction. Read more about the history of Tetris.

1991
Buena Vista Pictures releases the superhero adventure film The Rocketeer, directed by Joe Johnston and starring Bill Campbell, Alan Arkin, Jennifer Connelly, Timothy Dalton, Ed Lauter, Jon Polito, and Terry O’Quinn, to 1,616 US theaters. The film is based on the graphic novel The Rocketeer by Dave Stevens. Produced on a budget of US$35 million, the film will gross US$9,600,754 domestically. IMDB listing (MPAA Rating: PG) Running Time: 1 hr 48 mins

1993
The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Descent Part 1” first airs. (No. 626) In it, the Enterprise encounters a group of individualistic Borg lead by Data’s brother, Lore, and Data briefly experiences emotions. The episode is the finale of season six. At the beginning of the episode, Data is playing poker with holographic depictions of Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, and Isaac Newton. In the episode, Hawking plays himself. The physicist was on the Paramount lot for the video release of the film A Brief History of Time. He was given a tour of the set, during which he asked “Could you take me out of my chair and put me in the captain’s chair?” A few days later the producers had the idea of giving him a cameo in the episode. Memory Alpha entry

1995
Microsoft representatives meet with Netscape Communications representatives, requesting that Netscape not compete with Microsoft in the Web browser market. Microsoft offers to invest in Netscape and in exchange for a seat on the board of directors. Jim Clark refuses, and calls lawyer Gary Reback, who then contacts Joel Klein, lawyer in the antitrust division of the Department of Justice.

1996
Warner Bros. releases the sci-fi action film Eraser, directed by Charles Russell and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Vanessa Williams, James Caan, James Cromwell, and James Coburn, to 2,410 US theaters. The film will be nominated for an Academy Award for Sound Effects Editing in 1996. Produced on a budget of US$100 million, the film will gross US$24,566,446 domestically in its opening weekend. IMDB listing (MPAA Rating: R) Running Time: 1 hr 55 mins

1998
Microsoft releases Microsoft Outlook 98. Visit the official Microsoft Outlook website.

1999
America Online (AOL) announces that it has invested US$1.5 billion Hughes Electronics Corp., the company behind DirecTV. The agreement between the two companies will open new high-speed options for AOL while increasing DirectTV’s subscribers. Visit the official AOL website.

2000
Compaq Computer launches new Presario 5000 and 7000 desktop computers and Presario 1400 and 1700 portable computers, available with case insets in several colors including: amber orange, amethyst purple, emerald green, ruby red, sapphire blue, and smokey quartz. Visit the official Compaq website.

Sun Microsystems releases version 5.2 of the StarOffice free and open source office software suite for Linux, Solaris, and Windows. The suite includes: the StarWriter word processor, the StarCalc spreadsheet, the StarImpress presentation software, the StarDraw drawing tool, the StarBase database, and the Star Math formula generator. The package can be downloaded for free at the software’s official website.

2001
Microsoft releases Build 2494 of Windows XP to testers. This build is the first to offer up balloon help suggesting that users tie their Windows log-on to Passport. It is also the first build to feature the new Windows Messenger user interface.

Version 10.0.4 of the Mac OS X operating system is released. Visit the official Mac OS X website.

2002
The World Health Organization (WHO) declares Europe polio free. Visit the official World Health Organization website.

2003
Scholastic publishes the fantasy novel Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, by JK Rowling in the US. Scholastic sells an estimated five million copies of the book to American fans within the first twenty-four hours of its release. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc., the British publishers of the Harry Potter series, will later announce having sold a British record of 1,777,541 copies of the book in the same twenty-four hours. These numbers more than quadruple the first-day British sales of the book’s predecessor, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, which held the previous record of 372,775 copies. One copy of the book is sold for every sixty people living in the US and UK in the first twenty-four hours alone, and Barnes and Noble will report selling nearly eighty copies a second. The book is considered to be the most popular children’s book ever published. Order of the Phoenix weighs 2.2lbs and runs a lengthy 870 pages (766 pages in the British edition), with roughly 255,000 words. Not deterred by its size, the publishers printed thirteen million copies of the book before its release, and Scholastic will announce an additional run of eight hundred thousand copies of the book in order to meet the overwhelming demand for the book, bringing the initial number of books available to 9.3 million, an unprecedented number. Visit this author’s official website.

2004
SpaceShipOne becomes the first privately funded vessel to achieve spaceflight, and Mike Melvill becomes the first civilian to pilot a craft into space. By being carried to an altitude of 46,000 feet (13.8 km) by its launcher, the White Knight, SpaceShipOne is able to leave the Earth’s atmosphere in a sub-orbital space flight at an altitude of 100 kilometers (62 miles). The ship was built by Burt Rutan and financed by Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft. When SpaceShipOne separates, its glides briefly before firing its rocket for eighty seconds to continue its trip to the edge of space. For re-entry, the ship’s wings swing into a new configuration for the twenty minute glide back down to the Mojave Airport in California. The ninety-minute flight ends with a safe landing on the desert airport runway. The rocket engine fuel is a solid rubber propellant with liquid nitrous oxide.

2005
Cosmos 1, the world’s first solar sail spacecraft is launched aboard a Volna launch vehicle fired from a Russian submarine submerged in the Barents Sea. The 112kg Cosmos-1 spacecraft has an eight-petaled solar sail consisting of 650 square meters of a thin aluminum alloy coated film. The non-profit Planetary Society financed the four million dollar project, which constructed the spacecraft in Russia at the Lavochkin Association and the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy. It was designed for experiments in controlled flight while in orbit, which it is designed to achieve by rotating each sail to change its pitch, to test the feasibility of the propulsion provided by the impact of photons from the Sun. Unfortunately, a rocket failure eighty-three seconds after launch prevents the spacecraft from reaching its intended orbit. Read more at the BBC.

EA Games releases Battlefield 2 (BF2) for Windows in North America. BF2 is a first-person shooter with some strategy and role-playing elements developed with a custom game engine. It is the third full game of the Battlefield series. Visit the game’s official website. ESRB: E (Everyone)

2006
DC Comics releases Week 7 of the comic series 52. The issue features the first cameo of the new Batwoman character, also known as Katherine “Kate” Kane. This new incarnation of the character, who first appeared in Detective Comics No. 233 in 1956, is written as a lesbian of Jewish descent in an effort by DC to diversify its characters to connect with a wider audience. Reviews are initially split between criticism and praise of Batwoman’s new sexual orientation, and the character will come to be widely recognized as the highest profile gay character ever featured in a DC comic series.

Pluto’s newly discovered moons are officially christened Hydra & Nix. The moons were formerly known as Pluto II and III or P2 and P3 respectively.

2007
Bittorrent index The Pirate Bay launches BayImg, an uncensored image hosting service. The service allows users to anonymously upload images in any of a hundred formats up to 100MB in size and to assign their images “removal codes” that allow the user to later delete the images.
Visit the official BayImg website.