The Great Geek Manual

1618
Johannes Kepler formulates the Third Law of Planetary Motion. The third law states that, “The squares of the orbital periods of planets are directly proportional to the cubes of the semi-major axis of the orbits.” In other words, the period of a planet’s orbit around the Sun is determined by its distance from the Sun.

1775
Joseph Priestley, having discovered oxygen, experiments with mice in his home laboratory to determine whether or not it is necessary to support life.

1952
An artificial heart is used for the first time in a 41-year-old man. The heart keeps him alive for eighty minutes.

1955
Computer pioneer Doug Ross demonstrates the “Director” tape for MIT’s Whirlwind machine. The Director, which is the predecessor of operating systems for computers, gave instructions to the 4-year-old, 4,500 vacuum tube machine.

1960
For the release of Psycho, director Alfred Hitchcock and his distributor, Paramount, mandate that no one is to be admitted to theater auditoriums after the film has started so as not to spoil the suspense. This is the first step in what will eventually become the industry standard practice of holding discrete exhibitions of films, rather than continuously playing them throughout the day, as had previously been the practice.

1964
American International Pictures releases the horror film The Last Man on Earth, directed by Sidney Salkow and Ubaldo Ragona starring Vincent Price and Franca Bettoia, to US theaters. The film is based on the novel I Am Legend by Richard Matheson. IMDB listing Running Time: 1 hr 26 mins

1976
The largest recovered single stony meteorite (1,774 kg) fell in Jilin, China, during a meteor shower that dropped more than four thousand kilograms of extra-terrestrial rock.

1978
The first episode of the The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy radio series airs on BBC Radio 4.

1979
The first extraterrestrial volcanoes are discovered on Io, a satellite of Jupiter, by Voyager 1.

In Eindhoven, Netherlands, Philips publicly demonstrates a prototype of the first optical digital audio disc format at a press conference, calling it the “Philips Introduce Compact Disc.”

1982
The Dallas Morning News prints a story entitled “Pac-Man’s doing Navy duty”, a syndicated article written by Bob Greene. In the article, Bob introduces Chief Petty Officer Julie Red, age 27, who had been named the best of the Navy’s 3,500 recruiters. Petty attributes her success to her tactic of hanging out in video game arcades and challenging young men to games of Pac-Man.

1983
IBM introduces the IBM Personal Computer XT. It features a Intel 8088 processor, a 10MB hard drive, eight expansion slots, serial port, 128 kB RAM, 40Kb ROM, a keyboard, and one double-sided 360 kB floppy drive. “XT” stands for eXtended Technology. Price: US$4995

1991
Video game developers Broderbund Software and Sierra On-Line announce their intention to merge in a new company named Sierra-Broderbund.

1993
The nine month “Akron Anomaly BBS” felony court case comes to an end, with Sysop Mark Lehrer pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge of “Attempted Possession of Criminal Tools” (his computer). Lehrer had first been charged with distribution of pornography to minors, based on the presence of adult GIFs in a non-adult section of his BBS. The Akron, Ohio police department had quickly withdrawn this case and changed the charge to distribution of child pornography, which was also never proven.

1996
Acclaim Entertainment releases Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 for the Genesis in the US.

John Dondzila releases Vector Vaders, the first new Vectrex-compatible video game in twelve years. Vector Vaders is a Space Invaders clone. Read more about Vector Vaders at Classic Game Creations.

Nintendo announces a two month delay in their plans to launch the Nintendo 64“>Nintendo 64 in Japan. The company also announces the system’s launch titles, which include: Super Mario 64, PilotWings 64, and a third-party chess-like game.

Yahoo! acquires online communications company Four11. The company’s webmail service, Rocketmail, became Yahoo! Mail. Visit the official Yahoo! Mail website.

1998
The website of the Brookhaven National Lab is hacked by “Toxic ‘n Xnec”.

The website of the Patricia Seybold Group is hacked by “No|d”. View an archived version of the defaced website.

The website of the Rainbow Casino is hacked by “Seal”. View an archived version of the defaced website.

The website of the US Army 7th Brigade is hacked by “No|d”. View an archived version of the defaced website.

The website of the US Army Air Defense Artillery School at Fort Bliss is hacked by “No|d”. View an archived version of the defaced website.

The website of the US Army Executive Software Systems directorate is hacked by “No|d”. View an archived version of the defaced website.

1999
The United States government announces a settlement with Intel Corporation related to charges filed the previous June alleging that Intel used dominance in its chip making business to “bully competitors and stifle innovation”.

2000
Apple Computer settles several lawsuits against Daewoo, Emachines, and other computer manufacturers which Apple had alleged copied the look of Apple’s iMac out of court.

The Coca-Cola Company warns consumers that an Internet chain letter promising free Coke products as a reward to help build an email database is a hoax.

Dennis Moran, a 17 year-old high school dropout, is arrested and charged with hacking into the website of the Los Angeles Police Department’s drug prevention program, DARE, under the alias “Coolio”. Moran defaced the website with pro-drug slogans and images, including one of Donald Duck with a hypodermic syringe in his arm. On March 1, 2001, he will be sentenced to nine months behind bars, during which time he is ordered to help program the jail’s computers. See a mirror of the defaced website at the Attribution.org website.

Intel begins shipping very limited quantities of the 1GHz Pentium III microprocessor.

2001
America Online (AOL) membership surpasses twenty-eight million users.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) warns that organized international hacker groups, primarily in Russia and the Ukraine, have been targeting US computer systems. Their goals are to steal valuable data such as trade secrets and customer credit card numbers.

2002
Sun Microsystems files a private antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft in US District Court in San Jose, California. Sun seeks one billion dollars in damages, a preliminary injunction requiring Microsoft to ship Java with Internet Explorer and Windows XP, the release of source code for Internet Explorer, and the release of interfaces between Windows and higher-level Microsoft source code. Read more at FindLaw.

2004
Version 2 (v1.4.2_04) of the Java programming language is released. Visit the official Java website.

2005
F-Secure announce the detection of the first mobile messaging worm, dubbed CommWarrior.A, which is transmitted through the popular Mobile Messaging Service (MMS). When messages carrying the worm are opened, it duplicates itself and uses the infected phone’s address book to send copies further copies of itself. The worm, which had been spreading among cell phone users since January, is not considered a serious threat to cell phones, however, it does mark the beginning of a new age of security concerns.

The Fair Trade Commission of Japan (JFTC) rules that Intel violated Japanese antitrust laws and hurt competition in the country’s processor market. The ruling follows the agency’s raid of the offices of Intel’s Japanese subsidiary on April 8, 2004.

2006
Microsoft launches Windows Live Search, a revamped search engine, in an effort to remain competitive with search giants Google and Yahoo!. The new search engine includes support for tabbed web browsing, a search slider bar that offers previews of data, a “smart scroll” function that displays all search results at once, multiple methods of viewing images, and the ability to save their search parameters as macros. Visit the official Live Search website.