1684
Giovanni Domenico Cassini discovers Tethys and Dione, two moons of Saturn with a refractor telescope.
1859
The first Zoological Society is incorporated in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Following the disruption of the Civil War, the society will establish the country’s first Zoo.
1925
Wolfgang Pauli publishes his “exclusion principle” at the young age of twenty-four, in an article in the journal Zeitschrift für Physik. The Pauli exclusion principle states that two fermions, such as electrons, cannot be in the same quantum state at the same time. In 1945, Pauli will be awarded a Nobel Prize for this fundamental contribution to the science of quantum mechanics.
1928
Charles Lindbergh is awarded the Medal of Honor for his first trans-Atlantic flight. Read more about Charles Lindbergh.
1942
Arthur C. Wahl and Glenn Seaborg submit a secret report suggesting the name “Plutonium” for artificial element 94, since it follows Uranium (element 92) and Neptunium (element 93) in the periodic table of elements. The paper will be remain secret until 1948, following World War II, when it will be published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
1962
A bear becomes the first creature to be ejected from a vehicle at supersonic speeds.
1965
NASA launches the Ranger 9 Lunar Lander on a mission to photograph the lunar surface. It will return 5,814 pictures before impacting the surface of the Moon. Browse photographs returned by Ranger 9.
1969
The Konami Company is founded as a jukebox rental and repair firm in Osaka, Japan. Konami will eventually grow into a leading developer and publisher of numerous anime series, tokusatsu, trading cards, and video games. Visit the official Konami website.
1988
The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Heart of Glory” first airs. (No. 120) In it, Klingon fugitives attempt to hijack the Enterprise to take it into battle. Memory Alpha entry
1989
In a San Francisco Federal District Court, Judge William Schwarzer rules that Microsoft’s Windows 2.03 is not covered in the 1985 Apple Computer/Microsoft technology licensing agreement. The judge rules that only Windows 1.0 is included in the agreement,and that Windows 2.03 is fundamentally different. The ruling allows the issue to proceed to trial, in Apple Computer v. Microsoft, which was filed in March 1988.
1990
A hacker leaves a message on the computer of astronomer Cliff Stoll.
1991
Version 4.000 of the Perl programming language. Visit the official Perl website.
1994
Novell announces that it will acquire WordPerfect Corporation for US$1.4 billion and the Quattro Pro application from Borland International for US$145 million. Visit the official Novell website.
The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Genesis” first airs. (No. 719) In it, a medical treatment unleashes a virus that de-evolves the crew members it affects. Memory Alpha entry
Vice President Al Gore delivers a speech at the International Telecommunications Union in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In the speech, Gore discusses the potential benefits of the Global Information Infrastructure (GII) and possible means of achieving universal access. Gore also mentions the five fundamental principles of implementing GII, and the proposed the creation of a Global Digital Library. Read a transcript of the speech at the Interesting People website.
1995
Atari announces a new reduced price for the 64-bit Jaguar video game system of US$159.99. The new price for the system is without the game CyberMorph, which was previously bundled with the system. The bundle was previously sold at prices between US$189 and US$249.
1996
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) publishes PGPfone 1.0 beta for Windows 95, a utility for allowing users for securing telephone conversations over the Internet (VoIP) with a 4096-bit public key. Visit the official MIT PGPfone website.
1997
Square releases Final Fantasy IV for the PlayStation in Japan. Visit the game’s official website.
1999
Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones complete the first ever non-stop balloon flight around the world aboard the experimental Breitling Orbiter 3 balloon in just twenty days.
2000
America Online (AOL) announces that its internet service has exceeded twenty-two million subscribers.
2001
AMD releases the 1300MHz Athlon 1300B processor, featuring a 256KB Level-2 Cache and a 200MHz Front Side Bus.
AMD releases the 1333MHz Athlon 1333C processor, featuring a 256KB Level-2 Cache and a 266MHz Front Side Bus.
Apple Computer announces that beginning March 24, customers will be able to purchase Mac OS X in retail stores around the world. Apple markets the software as the world’s most advanced operating system, combining the power of Unix with the ease of use of Macintosh systems. Visit the official Mac OS X website.
Intel releases the 900MHz Pentium III Xeon processor, featuring a 2,048KB Level-2 Cache and a 100MHz Front Side Bus.
The TAT-14 transatlantic cable is goes into service. The cable system is a dual, bi-directional ring configuration using dense wavelength-division multiplex (DWDM) multiplexing with sixteen wavelengths of STM-64 per fiber pair for a capacity of 640 Gbps, or approximately 7.7 million telephone circuits, of which roughly eighty percent will be used to accommodate internet traffic. The fifteen thousand kilometer long cable connects Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States. It is owned by a consortium of fifty members, including: AT&T, British Telecom, Cable & Wireless, Deutsche Telekom, and France Telecom. Visit the official site of the TAT-14 Cable System.
A ten member Brazilian hacker group calling itself “Hfury” hacks into the Associated Press (AP) website and defaced it with the words “Owned by HFURY” and a list of the group’s members handles at approximately 2:19am Eastern Time. The defacement will remains until a Wall Street Journal Online reporter notices the words and contacts the AP. The AP takes down their site at 4:35am to correct the malicious alterations and their site is accessible again at 6:10am. The same group goes on to deface the website of the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation with obscenities and a skull-and-crossbones image. Hfury also later claims to have attacked the website of the French energy company Anroc, but company officials will consistently deny being compromised.
2004
AOL launches AOL Mail, a free webmail service. Visit the official AOL Mail website.
2005
Anthony Greco, age 18, of Cheektowaga, California pleads guilty in Los Angeles federal court to a single count of threatening to damage the computer systems of MySpace.com with the intent to extort. Greco admits that he wrote a program that was used to register thousands of fraudulent instant messaging accounts at MySpace in October and November 2004 in order to send more than 1.5 million automated spam messages containing advertising for mortgage refinancing and pornography to registered MySpace users. In response, MySpace.com was forced to spend more than US$20,000 deleting the unopened spam from its servers and putting protective measures against further attacks in place. Days after the attacks began, Greco contacted MySpace.com, took responsibility for writing the program used to send the unsolicited messages, and proposed that he be granted “exclusive” rights to send commercial email to MySpace users in return for protection against other spam advertisers. When MySpace didn’t respond, Greco sent other messages threatening to release his methods to other spammers if the company didn’t negotiate with him. In his messages, Greco notes that sharing his techniques would “open a Pandora’s box of Spam” on MySpace which could crash the system. On September 26, Greco will be sentenced under seal.
Jeff Weise, age 17, opens fire in a high school on a Red Lake, Minnesota Indian reservation, killing ten people, including himself, and injuring fourteen other students in the worst school shooting since the Columbine High School massacre on April 20, 1999. The dead include a school security guard, a female teacher, and Weise’s grandfather Daryl “Dash” Lussier, a veteran police officer of the Chippewa tribe. The event is dubbed the Red Lake High School Massacre by the media. Press coverage in the days to follow will include wide examination of Weise’s internet activity, including his instant messaging, LiveJournal page, his Yahoo! Profile, and his posts on the Above TopSecret, Homepage of the Dead, and Rise of the Dead forums. Weise was a self-described neo-Nazi, and his foreboding internet activity raises concerns for socially-withdrawn youth who spend time on the internet. The incident will yet again have experts drawing links between video game violence, and real life violence.
Qoobchip releases the Qoob Chip, a modchip for the Nintendo GameCube. The modchip allows the user to run unlicensed software such as bios replacements like GCOS, emulators, backup tools, and even operating systems such as Linux. Visit the official Qoob Chip website.
Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) releases the expansion pack EverQuest II: The Bloodline Chronicle for the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) EverQuest II for personal computers. The expansion pack introduces five new areas as well as new creatures, experiences, items, and quests. Visit the expansion pack’s website.
2006
PopCap Games and The Games for Health Project release a study suggesting that playing casual games including puzzle games can help you maintain a healthy mind. According to Ben Sawyer, co-founder and director of the Games for Health Project, “defined cognitive exercise can play a critical role in healthy aging.” Visit the official Games For Health
website.
2007
Apple Computer begins shipping the Apple TV, a digital media receiver. The device features a 40GB internal hard drive and the Mac OS X v10.4.7 operating system. Visit the official Apple TV website.
Version 6.6 of the DarkBASIC Professional (DBPro) programming language is released. DBPro is a dialect of BASIC specifically designed for graphically-intense game development. Visit the official DarkBASIC website.
2008
The Falcon 1, a partially reusable rocket launch system designed and manufactured by SpaceX, is first launched by privateer Elon Musk (founder of PayPal) from the Kwajalein Atoll in the South Pacific. Falcon 1 is a two-stage rocket that uses a fuel of liquid oxygen and kerosene. The first stage is designed to be recovered from the ocean for reuse, reducing the cost of a launch to the comparatively low price of seven million dollars.
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