The Great Geek Manual

1840
Englishman John William Draper becomes the first person to successfully photograph the Moon. The image is a daguerreotype, the precursor of the photograph.

1903
The Wright Brothers apply for a patent for one of the first successful airplanes. View the original patent application.

1962
The world’s first nuclear-powered cargo-passenger ship, the NS Savannah, is launched as part of the Atoms for Peace initiative of US President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

1965
NASA launches Gemini III, nicknamed the “Molly Brown,” from Cape Canaveral. It is the United State’s first maneuverable two-man mission. The mission is crewed by astronauts Virgil Ivan “Gus” Grissom and John W. Young. The flight is the first for Young, who breaks quarantine regulations by smuggling a sandwich into orbit to share with Grissom. Before the end of the mission, Young will become the first man to eat a corned beef sandwich in space. Read more about the history of Project Gemini.

1967
The Star Trek episode “The Alternative Factor” first airs. (No. 27) In it, the Enterprise encounters a scientist with the ability to shift between universes who claims to be pursued by a monster. Memory Alpha entry

1972
The Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) changes its name to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and is established as a separate agency under the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD). Visit the official DARPA website.

1982
According to Twin Galaxies, Michael Weisberg, age 27, scores arecord-setting 638,651 points on Atari’s Tempest, after playing the game for fifty minutes at the Space Port Arcade in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

1983
Dr. Barney C. Clark, the first recipient of a permanent artificial heart, dies at the University of Utah’s Medical Center 112 days after receiving the device.

United States President Ronald Reagan introduces a proposal for the the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), which will later be dubbed the “Star Wars” project, in a national address. The project was a plan to construct a system of orbital defenses to protect the United States from inbound strategic nuclear ballistic missiles in mid-flight. In his address he says, “I call upon the scientific community in our country, those who gave us nuclear weapons, to turn their great talents now to the cause of mankind and world peace, to give us the means of rendering those nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete.” Though the system will never be completely developed or deployed despite costing the government over one hundred billion dollars, the technologies developed by the SDI will pave the way for later anti-ballistic missile systems.

1989
Martin Fleischmann and Stan Pons, two Utah electrochemists claim to have achieved cold fusion, which is fusion at normal atmospheric pressure and room temperature. They claim to have sustained a controlled nuclear fusion reaction within a bench-top fusion percolator composed of two electrodes and heavy water to generate as much as one hundred percent as the two began with. The claims will be discredited when others failed to replicate the experiments, and discovered that the experiment includes none of the hallmarks of a nuclear processes, however, the claims and the controversy that grows up around them will generate new avenues of research around the world. Read more about cold fusion at Wired.

The stage play Doctor Who – The Ultimate Adventure premieres at the Wimbledon Theatre in London, England. The play is based on the popular British science fiction franchise Doctor Who. The play stars Jon Pertwee, the third Doctor of the television series.

1992
The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Cause and Effect” first airs. (No. 518) In it, the Enterprise gets stuck in a time loop, but with each loop, the crew retains some memories. Memory Alpha entry

1993
The discovery of the gene that causes Huntington’s disease is announced by the Huntington’s Disease Collaborative Research Group, an association of six laboratories in the England, the United States, and Wales. Huntington’s disease is a progressive genetic neurological disorder that causes symptoms which include dementia, irritability, jerky movements, and memory loss. Read more about Huntington’s disease.

1994
Richard Pryce, age 16, known by the webhandle “Datastream Cowboy”, is arrested and charged with breaking into hundreds of computers including systems at the Griffiths Air Force base, the Korean Atomic Research Institute, and NASA. The Times will later report that, knowing he was about to be arrested, Pryce “curled up on the floor and cried.” Pryce will later plead guilty to twelve hacking offenses and be fined US$1,800. Much later, Pryce’s mentor, a twenty-three year old named Matthew Bevan, known by web handle “Kuji”, will be tracked down and arrested, though charges against Bevan will ultimately be dropped.

1995
The American Coin Machine Exposition is held in Reno, Nevada. At the event, the Midway Manufacturing Company introduces the versus fighting game Mortal Kombat 3 arcade game. The game features new bosses, characters, and moves, along with the ability to grant mercy to opponents and the ability to change each character into an animal.

1996
The NASA Space Shuttle Atlantis docks with the Russian space station Mir to deliver a US astronaut Shannon Lucid for a 118 day stay aboard the station. The docking takes place 245 miles (400km) above Russia, and it is the third in a series of dockings intended to prepare the station for international inhabitation. It is the the seventy-sixth mission for the US shuttle program, the sixteenth mission for the Atlantis orbiter, and the fifth mission into space for Lucid, which is a record for any woman.

1998
The website of Sverigedemokraterna is hacked anonymously. View an archived version of the defaced website.

2001
Apple Computer issues firmware updates to make many of its Macintosh systems compatible with the Mac OS X operating system. Visit the official Mac OS X operating system.

The Russian space station Mir burns up in the Earth’s atmosphere after fifteen years in orbit. The debris that isn’t burned up falls safely into the Pacific ocean between Chile and New Zealand, in a region from which governments had routed planes and ships away. The station, which was launched in 1986, far exceeded its intended lifespan of five years.

Sony announces that it has shipped ten million units of the PlayStation 2 game systems worldwide. Visit the official PlayStation website.

2003
Nintendo releases the Game Boy Advance SP in North America. The devices are available in cobalt (blue metallic) and platinum (silver). Visit the official website of the Game Boy Advance SP. Price: US$99.95

Per Lidén releases version 1.1 of the CRUX operating system. Crux is a Linux distribution designed for experienced Linux users. Visit the official Crux website.

2004
Nintendo announces that, in the year since the release of the Game Boy Advance SP in North America, over 6.5 million units have been sold in North America alone, a record number for any game system in history. A total of 160 million units have been sold worldwide to date. Visit the official website of the Game Boy Advance SP.

2005
NASA announces that light from two Jupiter-like planets outside the solar system has been directly observed by the Spitzer Space Telescope for the first time. All others planets outside the system have previously been detected using either the “transit” or “wobble” techniques. The Spitzer Space Telescope was launched into space on board a Delta rocket from Cape Canaveral on August 25, 2003. Visit the official Spitzer Space Telescope website.

2007
Sony launches the Playstation 3 video game system in Africa, Australia, Europe, the Middle East, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. The system doesn’t include the Emotion Engine or Graphics Synthesizer, making the system far less backward-compatible with previous PlayStation titles. Visit the game’s official website. Price: €599 (Europe) or £425 (UK)