1865
At the first International Telegraph Convention, in Paris, France, the International Telegraph Union (ITU), which will later be renamed the International Telecommunication Union, is established to standardize and regulate international telecommunications. Visit the official International Telecommunications Union website.
1877
Edwin T. Holmes of Boston, Massachusetts installs the first burglar alarm, which connects to a telephone switchboard.
1890
Comic Cuts, the first British weekly comic paper, is first published in London by Alfred Northcliffe.
1902
Greek archaeologist Valerios Stais discovers an ancient mechanical analog computer in a ship wreck of the coast of the Greek island of Antikythera, later the Antikythera calculating mechanism. Archaeologists will theorize that the mechanism was designed to calculate astronomical positions and date it to between 150 and 100 BC. It’s complexity is comparable to that of eighteenth century clocks, but it is the oldest discovered geared device.
1912
The London Times reports that a new automatic telephone system featuring phones with rotary dials has been installed in Epsom, Surrey and that the system will be the following day. The new system, which is the first of its kind in Great Britain, will provide three hundred twenty Epson households with the ability to dial other numbers in the town without operator assistance. The Epsom experiment marks the beginning of telephone automation in Great Britain, years behind other nations, such as Canada and the United States.
1939
A game between Princeton University and Columbia University becomes the world’s first televised baseball game when it is broadcast from Columbia’s Baker Field in New York City.
1954
An official ground-breaking ceremony is held for the new European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) Laboratory in the Meyrin municipality or Geneva, Switzerland. Visit the official CERN website.
1955
Enrico Fermi and Leó Szilárd patent an atomic reactor. (US No. 2,708,656)
1965
Dolby Laboratories is founded by Ray Dolby in London, England. The company specializes in audio noise reduction technology, and it will later expand into audio compression and encoding. Visit the official Dolby website.
The first transatlantic color television transmission is made by the NBC network between the United Kingdom and the United States.
1967
Tennessee governor Buford Ellington signs legislation to repeal the 1925 Butler Act. The Act had prohibited teaching evolution in public schools by declaring it “unlawful for any teacher in any of the Universities, Normals and all other public schools of the State which are supported in whole or in part by the public school funds of the State, to teach any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals.” The law was tested the infamous “Scopes monkey trial,” in which high school teach John Scopes was successfully prosecuted and fined US$100 but later acquitted on a technicality.
1968
The first European satellite, ESRO 2B, is launched.
1969
The Soviet space probe Venera 6 begins its descent into the atmosphere of Venus, sending back atmospheric data before being crushed by the planet’s atmospheric pressure.
1989
In New York, Tengen holds a reception for members of the press, retailers, and trade representatives to launch the Tetris game cartridge. Tengen also runs a full-page ad in USA Today.
1990
Lewis Galoob Toys seeks a court declaration that the Game Genie does not infringe on Nintendo’s copyrights.
Satellite CD Radio, Inc. is founded. The company will later become Sirius Satellite Radio. Visit the official Sirius Satellite website.
1991
The first server in history to run HyperText Markup Language (HTML) and Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is set up by Tim Berners-Lee on a NeXTcube at CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland. The launch of this first server marks the birth of the World Wide Web. Read more about the history of the internet.
1993
The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Rightful Heir” first airs. (No. 623) In it, Worf experiences a crisis of faith, and travels to a monastery on Boreth where the mythic leader of the Klingon people, Kahless returns from the dead. Memory Alpha entry
1999
Intel introduces the Pentium III processor with clock speed of 550MHz.
Remote Agent becomes the first artificial intelligence system (AI) to be given primary control of a spacecraft. For two days the AI will operate on the on-board computer of the NASA space probe Deep Space 1, nearly sixty million miles distant from Earth. Remote Agent is written entirely in Common Lisp.
2000
Number Nine Visual Technology, a manufacturer of graphics processors, ceases operations. Most of its assets were acquired by S3 during the the company’s 1999 during bankruptcy reorganization. Visit the official S3 Graphics website.
The Star Trek: Voyager episode “The Haunting of Deck Twelve” is first airs. (No. 625) In it, Neelix takes the opportunity to tell the Borg children a ghost story as Voyager travels through a nebula which effects the ship’s power systems. Memory Alpha entry
2001
The Apache.org and SourceForge.net websites are hacked by the “Fluffy Bunny” group.
The DVD+RW Alliance announces the addition of DVD+R write-once capabilities to the standard. Visit the official DVD+RW Alliance website.
J2SE 1.3.1 (Ladybird) is released. Visit the official Java website.
The Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) is held in Los Angeles, California, over three days. Sixty-two thousand people attend. At the event, Microsoft unveils the Xbox video game system, and Nintendo unveils the GameCube video game system.
2002
Nintendo releases the GameCube video game system in Australia. Visit the official Nintendo GameCube website.
Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) Europe releases Final Fantasy Anthology for the PlayStation in Europe. Visit the game’s official website. ELSPA: 11+ USK: Free For All
Square releases Final Fantasy X for the PlayStation 2 in Australia. Visit the game’s official website. OFLC: M15+
2004
According to Twin Galaxies, J.C. Padilla scores 2,181,619,994,299,256,480 on Giga Wing 2 on the Dreamcast, setting a record for the highest score on any game.
The Andromeda episode “The Dissonant Interval (Part II)” first airs. (No. 88-422) In it, Dylan takes a trip through the Route of Ages to escape a stand off.
The anime film Appleseed, directed by Shinji Aramaki and featuring the voice talents of Ai Kobayashi, Jurota Kosugi, and Yuki Matsuoka is released to theaters in Japan. It is based on the characters created by Masamune Shirow in the original 1985 manga series Appleseed, and it will be released in the US on January 14, 2005. Visit the film’s official website. IMDB listing Running Time: 1 hr 45 mins
2005
Nintendo holds a press conference at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) to announce that the company has sold two billion software titles since it entered the video game market. The company also announces that its online strategy for the Nintendo DS is to offer Wi-Fi Internet connectivity in partnership with GameSpy, and it introduces the Game Boy Micro, the smallest cartridge-based video game system in history. The Game Boy Micro is two inches by four inches in size and seven-tenths of an inch thick. It weighs 2.8 ounces. The company also offers some of the details of the upcoming Revolution video game system. It will read proprietary DVD-size disc and GameCube disc media, 512MB flash memory, and SecureDigital media. It will also feature a virtual console play of NES, SNES, and Nintendo 64 games via download. Visit the official Nintendo website.
Sony Computer Entertainment confirms some specifications of the Cell processor that will be shipped in the forthcoming PlayStation 3 video game console. The Cell configuration will have one Power processing element (PPE) on the core, with eight physical SPEs in silicon. In the PlayStation 3, one SPE is locked-out during the test process, a practice which helps to improve manufacturing yields. The target clock-frequency at the time of the console’s initial introduction is 3.2GHz. The initial units will be produced at IBM’s facility in East Fishkill, New York.
2006
Pioneer ships BDR-101A, the world’s first Blu-ray Disc recorder drive for personal computers. The drive supports a data transfer rate of 72 Mbit/s. A single disc holds just over two hours of high-definition video. Price: Approximately US$1,000
Version 2.2.11 of GIMPshop, which is based on version 2.2.11 of The Gimp, is released. GIMPshop is a modification of the free/open source graphics program GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP), intended to replicate the layout and features of Adobe Photoshop. Its primary purpose is to make users of Photoshop feel comfortable using GIMP. Visit the official GIMPShop website.
2007
The birth place of Hewlett-Packard, the garage at 367 Addison Ave, Palo Alto, California, is official listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the “HP Garage”. The stand-alone garage was built in back of the house around 1924, and in 1987, it was listed as a California state historical landmark. Visit the official Hewlett-Packard website.
Nintendo releases the platform game Wario: Master of Disguise for the Nintendo DS in Australia.
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