The Great Geek Manual

1797
Thomas Jefferson presents a paper on the Megalonyx to the American Philosophical Society. It will be published as “A Memoir on the Discovery of Certain Bones of a Quadruped of the Clawed Kind in the Western Parts of Virginia,” Transactions of American Philosophical Society 4:255-256, along with an account by Caspar Wistar (1761-1818). This is arguably the first American publication in paleontology, but it is certainly the only paleontology paper written by Jefferson. In 1822, this huge extinct sloth will be named “Megalonyx jeffersoni” by a French naturalist. It is a bear-sized ground sloth species, over two meters tall, which was widespread in North America during the last Ice Age. Read more about Jefferson’s Ground Sloth at Yukon Beringia.

1801
The first census in Great Britain is conducted.

1849
Abraham Lincoln becomes the first United States president to apply for a patent. (US No. 6469) The patent is for a method of “Buoying vessels over shoals.” See a copy of the original application at Google Patents Search.

1862
The United States issues the first modern first paper money, commonly called “Greenbacks” to replace Demand Notes. Greenbacks will be issued until 1971. On the brink of bankruptcy and pressed to finance the Civil War, Congress had authorized the United States Treasury to issue paper money for the first time in the form of non-interest bearing Treasury Notes called Demand Notes in 1861. These Demand notes bore no resemblance to modern money. To learn more about the history of US currency, visit the MoneyFactory.

1874
Purdue University in Indiana admits its first student.

1876
Alexander Graham Bell, age 29, Alexander Graham Bell makes what is, in effect, the first telephone call. In an excited voice, he says “Mr. Watson, come here, I want you!” In truth, Bell didn’t immediately realize that his demonstration had worked. He was hurriedly setting things up and spilled acid. Bell’s plea was directed to a nearby Mr. Watson, in the hope that he would come to help quickly clean up the spill. This was Bell’s first successful experiment with the telephone, which is recorded in the March 10th entry of his Lab Notebook. The same day, an ebullient Bell wrote his father of his “great success” and speculated that “the day is coming when telegraph [phone] wires will be laid on to houses just like water and gas – and friends converse with each other without leaving home.” Bell had received the first telephone patent three days before. Later that year, Bell will succeed in making a phone call over outdoor lines.

1891
Almon Brown Strowger is issued a patent for his electromechanical switch to automate telephone exchanges. (US No. 447,918) Strowger didn’t invent the idea of automatic switching (it was first invented in 1879 by Connolly and McTigthe) but Strowger was the first to put it to effective use. Stowger, a Kansas City Undertaker, became concerned that the telephone operator in his city was routing all customer calls to a competitor, and begins designing an automatic telephone switching system. Stowger constructed the central office switching system using a collar box and handy bits of metal. His selector uses electromagnets and pawls to move a wiper (with contacts on the end) vertically and around a bank of many other contacts to make a connection with any one of them. Strowger will form Strowger Automatic Telephone Exchange, in October 1891. This “Strowger Switch” will first be put into use in LaPorte, Indiana in 1892, and the design will be improved upon until the first “Step by Step, Up-and-Around” switching systems are in place. These automatic switching systems are vital in removing human intervention at the telephone company for telephone calls.

1902
A United States court of appeals rules that Thomas Edison did not invent the movie camera.

1903
Typewriter salesman Harry C. Gammeter of Cleveland, Ohio, patents the first commercially successful device to simplify the printing process, the Multigraph duplicating machine. (US No. 722,404) The device allows laymen to rearrange a set of moveable type to produce professionally lettered messages that appear to be hand typed.

Harry C. Gammeter, a . Consisting of a metal drum with vertical channels running across it, it allows laymen to arrange moveable type with a retaining foot into the channels to roll out professionally lettered solicitation letters.

1918
Warner Brothers Studios releases its first major film, My Four Years in Germany. Visit the official Warner Bros. website.

1922
The Variety entertainment trade magazine runs an article entitled, “Radio Sweeping Country—Million Sets in Use.” Visit the official Variety website.

1926
The first Book of the Month Club mail-order selection is produced.

1948
Herbert H. Hoover, a test pilot for the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics (NACA), becomes the first civilian pilot to exceed the speed of sound in a Bell X-1 aircraft at the Edwards AirForce Base in California. His aircraft is dropped from the bomb bay of a B-29 bomber at twenty-thousand feet. His flight, which reaches a peak speed of Mach 1.065, follows in the footsteps of Chuck Yeager, the first military pilot to break the sound barrier.

1950
Radio Corporation of America (RCA) shoots the first color television recording at its Silver Spring Laboratory using the “dot sequential” system.

First filmed recording of RCA colour television is made at the RCA Silver Spring Laboratory. The ‘dot sequential’ system records at 15 frames per second.

1955
The final episode of “The Silver Eagle” is broadcast, marking the end of the the era of adventure stories which were so prominent during the golden age of radio.

1970
Mika becomes the first satellite launched from the Kourou spaceport in French Guyana.

1972
Universal Pictures releases the science fiction film Silent Running, directed by Douglas Trumbull and starring Bruce Dern, Cliff Potts, Ron Rifkin, and Jesse Vint, to US theaters. In it, a member of the crew of a greenhouse ship rebels when the ship receives orders to jettison it botanical cargo, enormous domes containing the last remnants of Earth’s ecosystems. Like other Trumbull films, it will gain notoriety for its excellent special effects. However, despite the film’s extensive special effects and excellent use of models of the ship’s exterior, the film was largely shot aboard a decommissioned Essex-class fleet aircraft carrier to save on set costs. The ship in the film was, in fact, named for the real-world ship on which the film was shot, the Valley Forge. IMDB listing MPAA Rating: Running Time: 1 hr 29 mins

1982
All nine planets align on the same side of Sun, in Syzygy.

1986
Japan’s first interplanetary spacecraft, Sakigake, passes with in 6.8 million kilometers of Halley’s Comet at 6.8 million kilometers. Visit the official Sakigake website.

1988
Art Cancro, using the web handle “IGnatius T. Foobar”, lauches the Uncensored! bulletin board system (BBS) on an Altos 586 UNIX System, running a customized version of the Citadel BBS Software called Citadel/UX. The BBS will outlive nearly all of its contemporaries, shutting off dial-up access in 2001, but maintaining a web presence. Visit the official Uncensored! BBS.

1994
3DO announces that Goldstar and Samsung Electronics have been licensed to manufacture 3DO Interactive Multiplayer video game systems.

1995
The sysop of The Davy Jones Locker bulletin board system (BBS), Richard D. Kenadek of Millbury, Massachusetts, is sentenced in US District Court to six months’ home detention and two years’ probation for violating copyright laws with his BBS. Charges were filed in August 1994, following a 1992 raid, and in December 1994, Kenadek pleaded guilty to one of the two charges brought against him.

1997
America Online (AOL) announces the acquisition of Lightspeed Media, Inc., a producer of Internet-based soap operas and other internet video programs.

The ashes of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry are launched into space in a capsule about the size of a stick of lipstick aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia. The ashes will remain in orbit for approximately five years, until it burns up on re-entry.

At 10:30am, Electronics Arts hosts a ground breaking ceremony for the construction on their new one-million-square-foot world headquarters in Redwood City, California.

A hacker known by the web handle “Jester” becomes the first juvenile charged with federal computer crimes. Jester disabled a key telephone company computer servicing the Worcester airport earlier in the month. As a result of a series of commands sent from the hacker’s personal computer, vital services to the FAA control tower were disabled for six hours. In the course of his hacking, he also electronically broke into a pharmacy computer and copied patient records. Jester will later be sentenced to paying restitution to the telephone company and two hundred fifty hours of community service. He will also be required to forfeit all of the computer equipment used during his criminal activity. Read more about the prosecution at the US Department of Justice’s official website.

Netscape Communications Corp. announces a third generation of its web browser software. The new software focuses on extranets, or private Internet connections between companies. Visit the official Netscape Navigator website.

1998
Nintendo of America announces plans to release a version of the Game Boy handheld video game system with a color screen capable of displaying up to fifty-six colors of a thirty-two thousand color (16-bit) palette at one time. It will be backward compatible with all previous Game Boy titles. The company doesn’t cite a specific release date, but promises that the system will be in stores “soon.”

The website of Tae Chang is hacked by “Shadow Guru & Tribal Ghost”. It’s homepage, as well as two of its subdomains, hotmail and playboy, are defaced. View an archived version of the defaced websites.

The website of the NASA Ames Research Center (ARC) is hacked by “Magica de Bin”. View an archived version of the defaced website.

1999
The founding of Battlebots is announced by Trey Roski and Greg Munson, the two former builders of the famous Robot Wars competitor, LaMachine. Visit the official Battlebots website.

Next Generation Online headlines an investigative report entitled, “Sega: The Dark Days”. The article examines “why some in the industry have lept to the conclusion that PlayStation 2’s specs mean an end to Sega.”

Sony files three requests with the San Francisco Federal District Court, regarding Connectix’s Virtual GameStation product. Sony demands that Connectix cease use of the PlayStation BIOS, deliver all copies of the BIOS to Sony, and give Sony all prototypes of the Windows version of the software. The court rejects all requests.

2000
At the Game Developers’ Conference in San Jose, California, the chairman of the Microsoft Corporation, Bill Gates, formally announces the rumored Xbox video game system will be released in the fall of 2001. “The Xbox provides performance better than twice that of any previous platform,” says Gates. “X-Box is a global product so we’ll be selling it worldwide.” Among the system’s initial titles, Activision’s executive vice president, Mitch Lasky, promises an enhanced port of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. The system will feature a a custom Intel Pentium III 600MHz Central Processing Unit (CPU), 64MB RAM, an 8GB hard drive, a special nVidia graphics processor, 64-channel 3D audio, and high-speed Internet connectivity. Visit the official Xbox website.

The NASDAQ stock market index peaks at 5132.52, signaling the beginning of the end of the dot-com boom. Read more about the peak in an article at The New York Times.

The value of Sony Corporation stock drops 2.67 percent to 27,350 yen by midday following an announcement is made by Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) revealing that the company has received numerous complaints in regard to the performance of the PlayStation 2 video game system. According to the complaints, the system’s video disk player doesn’t work properly. The company announces that it is investigating whether the issue is technical or a misunderstanding on the part of consumers. Reuters news service speculates that the system may need to be recalled, but a Sony Computer Entertainment of America (SCEA) spokesperson denies that there is any problem whatsoever.

2002
Computers at Georgia Tech is hacked, and an undisclosed number of employee financial records and university credit card numbers are potentially exposed. Georgia Tech’s webmaster will discover the break-in on March 11 after noticing that the logs for the server had been erased sometime early on March 10. Research conducted by the institutes’s IT department will show that the system was used as an unauthorized FTP server over the weekend. It was used by someone off campus to download and then upload a large number of files. Officials believe that the hacker may have parked a movie or some other large file on the server and then let others know where they could download the data. The hacker then removed the files and erased logs.

In Japan, Sony announces the Clié PEG-NR70 and PEG-NR70V handheld computers, featuring a 66MHz Motorola Dragonball SuperVZ processor, 16MB RAM, a 3.8-inch 320×480 pixel 16-bit color screen, a digital audio player, a keyboard, the Palm OS, a Memory Stick slot, rechargeable lithium-polymer batteries, and a remote control software and infrared port. The PEG-NR70 will go on sale March 23. The PEG-NR70V will also include a built-in digital camera, and it will go on sale April 13. Weight: 7 ounces

2003
Sony announces the Sony Clié PEG-TG50 handheld computer, featuring a 320×320 backlit color screen, Bluetooth wireless connectivity, a built-in keyboard, the Palm OS 5 operating system, and a voice recorder. The device will be available for sale in the US later in March. Price: US$400 Weight: 6.2 ounces

Sony announces the Sony Clié PEG-SJ22 handheld computer, as a replacement for the SJ30. Price: US$200

Sony announces the Sony Clié PEG-SJ33 Limited Edition handheld computer, available with an orange or blue case. Price: US$300.

Vector Capital announces that it has reached an agreement with Microsoft under which Vector Capital will acquire Microsoft’s twenty-three million shares of Corel stock for approximately US$13 million.

2004
Lions Gate Films releases the sci-fi comedy film Phil the Alien, directed by Rob Stefaniuk and starring Rob Stefaniuk, Nicole de Boer, and Graham Greene to theaters in Canada. In it, an alien crash lands in the wilderness of northern Canada. Visit the film’s official website. IMDB listing MPAA Rating: R Running Time 1 hr 25 mins

2005
At the Game Developers Conference, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata demonstrates the games ElectroPlankton and Nintendogs for the Nintendo DS handheld video game system. Iwata also reveals some details the video game system code-named “Revolution,” which will later be named Wii. He reveals that ATI Technologies will supply the system’s graphics processor under the code-named “Hollywood,” International Business Machines (IBM) will supply the system’s processor under the code-named “Broadway”, and the system will include built-in support for wireless networking. Visit the official Nintendo website.

2006
The NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) attains orbit around Mars. Visit the official Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter website.