1870
Thomas Edison is issued a patent for a “Printing Telegraph Instruments.” (US No. 103,924)
1892
Thomas Edisonis granted patents for a “System of Electric Lighting,” an “Incandescent Electric Lamp,” a “System of Electrical Distribution,” an “Incandescent Electric Lamp,” an “Electric-Lighting System,” and an “Ore-Screening Apparatus.” (US No. 476,527-32)
1939
Harley Iams and Albert Rose of Radio Corporation of America (RCA) introduce the Orthicon television camera tube. The device uses a simple cylindrical tube four to five inches in diameter to focus the electron scanning beam with a magnetic coil.
1951
AT&T and International Telephone and Telegraph signed a cross-licensing patent agreement that will lead to the complete standardization of the American telephone industry. The move results in interchangeable telephone hardware being used across North America.
1953
Radio Corporation of America (RCA) launches its color television system, which is compatible with black and white receivers. Visit the official RCA website.
1954
English mathematician Alan Turing, who will later widely be recognized as the father of computer science, eats an apple soaked in cyanide and commits suicide at the age of forty-two. Turing’s suicide comes after his arrest and conviction for “Gross Indecency” arising from the discovery of his sexual affair with another man. Turing had spiraled deeper and deeper into depression after being forced to undergo a series of estrogen treatments that left him impotent and obese following the conviction.
The first U.S. laboratory specifically built for microbiology research is dedicated at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Visit the official Rutgers University website.
1955
Dwight D Eisenhower becomes the first US president to appear in a color television broadcast.
1965
The Sony Corporation introduces its first consumer 1/2-inch format helical scan black-and-white video tape recorder. Price: Under US$3,000
1968
The first Legoland Park, featuring expansive cityscapes modeled in Lego bricks, is opened in Billund, Denmark. The theme park will attract 625,000 visitors within a year. Visit the official Lego website.
1971
The Soviet Soyuz 11 capsule makes the first successful visit to Salyut 1, the world’s first space station. The crew makes the first personnel transfer to the orbiting station. However, the mission will end in catastrophe when the capsule depressurizes during re-entry.
1975
Sony releases the first home videocassette recorder, the Betamax, Betamax in Japan. The media format is proprietary. In the following year JVC will introduce a competing system called the Video Home System (VHS).
1980
The first solar power plant in the United States and the largest in the world is dedicated at the Natural Bridge National Monument in Utah. The plant features over a quarter of a million solar cells arranged in twelve long rows, and it generates 100-kilowatts of electricity to power the park’s maintenance facilities, staff residences, visitor center, and water systems. Visit the official Natural Bridge National Monument website.
Michael D. Eaton is granted a patent for the AT Command Set for Modems, which standardizes a language for interacting with modems. (US No. 4,387,440) The rights for this command set will be purchased by the Hayes Corporation and incorporated into the Hayes Smartmodem 300 as the “Hayes Command Set.” The sprotocol will become an industry standard used for years to come.
1983
At the Summer Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Commodore International introduces the Executive 64, formerly the Commodore SX-100. The system features a 1Mhz MOS Technology 6510 CPU, 64KB RAM, a six inch 16-color monitor, a built-in 1541 floppy drive, two Atari standard joystick sockets, a sixty-six key detachable keyboard, and the Commodore BASIC 2.0 operating system. The Executive 64, which is also known as the VIP-64 in Europe, is the first color portable computer. Download schematics for the SX-64. Price: US$995 Weight: 23lb (10.5 kg)
1996
Paramount Pictures releases the film The Phantom, directed by Simon Wincer and starring Billy Zane, Kristy Swanson, and Catherine Zeta-Jones, to 2,159 US theaters. It is based on the Lee Falk comic strip The Phantom, which featured the first character to wear the tights that would become the signature costume of future superheroes. The film, like other pulp adaptations of its time, will be a box office bomb, being widely criticized for failing to live up to contemporary expectations of comic book films. Produced on a budget of US$42 million, it will gross US$5,072,346 domestically in its opening weekend. IMDB listing (MPAA Rating: PG) Running Time: 1 hrs 40 mins
1999
In the case of United States v. Microsoft, International Business Machines (IBM) executive Garry Norris offers dramatic testimony as to the laundry list of monopolistic abuses perpetrated by Microsoft in the mid-nineties. According to Norris, who was one of IBM’s chief negotiators, alleges that Microsoft pressured IBM to stop shipping its own OS/2 operating system and a number of business applications which directly competed with Microsoft Office, including Lotus and SmartSuites. Microsoft also attempted to force IBM into leaving the Netscape web browser off of its systems in exchange for a lower price on Windows. Read more at the New York Times.
2000
The Brazilian website of InterNext is hacked by “ANALISTA”. View an archived version of the defaced website.
United States District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson orders the breakup of Microsoft into two companies, one for the development of operating systems and the other for the development of other applications. Microsoft immediately announces that it will file an appeal of the judgment.
Version 2.2.16 of the Linux operating system is released.
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