1836
Edgar Allan Poe marries his 13-year-old cousin Virginia.
1866
Charles Elmer Hires of the USA invents root beer.
1888
The flat gramophone disc and its reproduction is demonstrated by Emile Berliner to members of the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. His technique involves coating a zinc disc with a wax resist into which the stylus cuts the recording. The disc is then etched in acid to cut the recording into the zinc. Berliner intends to use the electrotyping process to make copies of the zinc master disc and demonstrates a copper duplicate.
1925
Commentary on the Kentucky Derby horse race is broadcast for the first time by radio station WHAS.
1929
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences holds its first Academy Awards presentation at the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood, California. The award for Best Film goes to Paramount Studio’s Wings (Paramount), Best Actor is awarded to Emil Jannings, Best Actress is awarded to Janet Gaynor. The statuette is designed by Cedric Gibbons, the art director at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), and manufactured by Dodge Trophy Company of Crystal Lake, Illinois; it measures thirteen inches high and weighs eight pounds. The term “Oscar” won’t be used until 1931.
1930
Geophysical Service Inc. is established by J. Clarence (”Doc”) Karcher and Eugene McDermott as the first independent contractor specializing in the reflection seismograph method of geophysical exploration. Although the firm is incorporated in Newark, New Jersey, headquarters are established in Dallas, Texas. The New Jersey laboratory is a seven hundred square foot space above an automobile showroom. The Dallas office is located on the thirteen floor of the downtown Republic Bank Building. A division of Geophysical Service will become Texas Instruments, Inc. (TI) in 1951. Cecil H. Green (field party chief) and John Erik Jonsson (superintendent of the laboratory) are among the first employees.
1943
During WW II, “bouncing bombs” invented by Dr. Barnes Wallis are dropped on the Mohne and Eder dams in the Ruhr Valley. Wallace had realized that breaching the dams would destroy vital enemy war factories and disrupt the flow of hydroelectricity to the industrial Ruhr area. He overcame skepticism from the British military command and designed an innovative bomb that could be delivered against the side of a dam. Both were demanding tasks. Carefully planned bomber flights delivered very large, cylindrical bombs rotating backwards at high speed that would, when dropped at the right height and place, skip along the surface of the water, right up to the base of the dam. Wallis based his idea on the simple pastime of skipping stones on a pond.
1946
The world’s first magnetic tape recorder was demonstrated for the first time by Jack Mullin.
1960
A synthetic ruby crystal laser is first operated at Hughes Research Laboratories in Malibu, California. The laser is a device that produces monochromatic coherent light (light in which the rays are all of the same wavelength and phase). This first operable laser device is invented by American physicist Theodore Maiman, for which he will be issued a US patent on November 14, 1967. (US Patent 3,353,115)
1965
The Campbell Soup Company introduces SpaghettiOs under its Franco-American brand.
1969
The Soviet space probe Venera 5 lands on Venus.
1984
Thomas G. Tcimpidis, Sysop of the MOG-UR BBS, has his personal computer and data storage seized by the Los Angeles Police when Pacific Tel determines that one of his message bases contains a stolen Calling Card number.
1988
Nicotine is declared to be addictive in ways similar to heroin and cocaine, in a report released by US Surgeon-General C. Everett Koop.
The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “The Neutral Zone” first airs. In the episode, a derelict satellite is found with cryogenically frozen humans aboard as the Enterprise is sent to investigate the destruction of outposts near Romulan space.
1992
Space Shuttle Endeavour lands safely in the California desert after a successful maiden voyage.
1993
The Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode “If Wishes Were Horses” first airs. In the episode, the station is put in jeopardy when the crew’s thoughts manifest themselves, and such figures as Rumpelstiltskin appear.
1994
The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Preemptive Strike” first airs. In the episode, Ensign Ro returns with advanced tactical training and is sent by Picard to spy on the Maquis rebellion.
1996
In Los Angeles, California, the second annual Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) is held, over three days. Over fifty-five thousand people attend the event.
1997
American Mobile Satellite and WorldSpace officially change the name of American Mobile Radio to XM Satellite Radio.
2000
In Canada, Corel announces that the proposed merger with Inprise has been cancelled.
Internet2 backbone network deploys Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6). The main improvement IPv6 provides is the increase in the number of addresses available for networked devices. IPv4, the last protocol, supports 232 (about 4.3 billion) addresses, which is inadequate for giving even one address to every living person, let alone their portable devices. IPv6, however, supports approximately 5×1028 addresses for each of the roughly 6.5 billion people alive today. With such a large address space available, IPv6 nodes can have as many universally scoped addresses as they need, and network address translation is not required.
Microsoft officially releases Windows 2000 Service Pack 2. The update fixes over five hundred software bugs.
2001
CyberRebate.com, Inc., renown for offering 100% rebates on significantly overpriced consumer products, issues a statement that they have filed for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11 in the Eastern District of New York. The company reportedly has US$59 million less than what they need to pay all of their outstanding rebates. In some cases, customers expect in excess of US$115,000 in rebates for purchases that promised 100% of their original purchase price returned. Martinb McMillan of Galax, Virginia would purchase items from CyberRebate.com expecting to sell them on eBay (www.ebay.com) and enjoy a significant profit once the rebates for the purchase price was settled. An unidentified 52-year-old woman purchased almost US$80,000 in toys from CyberRebates.com and gave them away to neighborhood children before discovering she may not ever receive the rebates for which she applied. Read more at PCWord.
Microsoft announces a launch date of November 8th for the Xbox in the US. Price: US$299
Nintendo demonstrates the GameCube system in Los Angeles, California, and announces the launch dates for the system of September 14 in Japan and November 5 in North America.
Sony CEA announces plans to bring Internet functions to the PlayStation 2, such as web browsing, email, streaming media, and instant messaging. Sony also announces add-on accessories that will become available in November: an ethernet/modem PS2 network adapter, a 40GB hard drive, an LCD monitor, a USB keyboard, and a mouse.
The Star Trek: Voyager episode “Renaissance Man” first airs. In the episode, The Doctor is forced to help aliens steal Voyager’s warp core.
2002
The film Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, directed by George Lucas and starring Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Hayden Christensen, and Christopher Lee is released to theaters in the US. IMDB listing
Square releases Final Fantasy XI for the PlayStation 2 in Japan. Price: 7800 yen (about US$61)
Bethesda Softworks and Ubisoft releases The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind for the XBox in North America.
2003
The first film screened digitally in cinemas from a DVD is The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys, shown in four Norwegian cinemas in Kristiansand, Lillehammer, Moss, and Risør. The projection system is that used for pre-film screening of advertising, not the high-resolution kind being developed for cinema presentations. IMDB listing
A total lunar eclipse is visible from Europe, the Americas and most of Africa from 01:46 to 05:34 GMT.
2005
At 21:25 GMT, in a pre-E3 press conference, Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City, Sony unveils a prototype of the PlayStation 3 video game system, featuring a 3.2GHz Cell processor delivering up to 218 gigaflops of performance, a 550MHz Nvidia RSX graphics processor, a wireless Bluetooth 2.0 for up to seven controllers, a Blu-Ray disc player, an Internet browser, a detachable hard drive, Wi-Fi connectivity to the PlayStation Portable, a 512KB Level 2 cache, 3.2GHz 256MB XDR main RAM, 700MHz 256MB GDDR3 video RAM, six USB 2.0 ports, a Memory Stick port, a SecureDigital port, a Compact Flash port, an Ethernet port, screen sizes up to 1080 lines, and two HDMI video out ports for 32:9 aspect on two HD monitors. Total system floating-point performance peak: 2 teraflops. Sony estimated a Spring 2006 release date for the system.
Blizzard Entertainment acquired Swingin’ Ape Studios, and in March 2006 they announced that Starcraft: Ghost was on indefinite hold.
In a lawsuit brought against Apple by computer retailer Tiger Direct regarding its use of the name “Tiger”, a federal court in the Southern District of Florida ruled that Apple’s use of the name “Tiger” does not infringe upon Tiger Direct’s trademark.
XM announces that subscribership has topped 4 million. This indicates exponential growth for the company. In five weeks time, they added 230,000 subscribers — almost 50% of the subscribers added during the previous quarter.
2006
Activision releases X-Men: The Official Game for GBA, Nintendo DS, Nintendo GameCube, PC, PS2, Xbox, and Xbox 360.
Apple announces the 13-inch MacBook available in 2.0 GHz and 2.16 GHz, discontinuing the PowerBook G4.
Damn Small Linux 2.4 is released.
First Second announce they have reached an agreement to produce a series of graphic novels based upon the Prince of Persia computer game
Nintendo releases New Super Mario Bros. for the Nintendo DS in the US.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission accused Phantom Entertainment founder and former CEO Timothy Roberts of running a pump and dump scheme in promoting The Phantom console in 2004.
Toshiba released its first PC with a HD DVD-ROM drive, the Toshiba Qosmio 35. There are also a number of laptops and desktops from Hewlett Packard (HP), Acer, Samsung, LG Electronics (LGE), Fujitsu and others equipped with HD DVD drives. All desktop systems so far use the NEC HR-1100A HD DVD-ROM, which is for OEM usage only.
Ubisoft releases Heroes of Might and Magic V for the Mac OS X and Windows.
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