The Great Geek Manual

1908
Electrical engineer Frank Pearne and his son, Howard, also an electrical engineer, receive a patent for the typebar page printer. (US No. 888,335)

1910
The Earth passes through the 24-million-mile-long tail of Halley’s Comet for approximately six hours. A few years earlier, astronomers discovered that another comet contained Cyanogen, and scientists predicted that, if Earth passed through Halley’s comet tail, everyone would die.

1922
Charles Francis Jenkins achieves his first successful television transmission in his laboratories.

1924
Bell System engineers publicly demonstrate the first transmission of pictures over telephone wires.

1927
Sid Grauman’s Chinese Theatre opens on Hollywood Boulevard. Read more about Grauman’s Chinese Theatre.

1932
John Logie Baird demonstrates the Visiophone in Paris, France. The Visiophone is an early telephone capable of transmitting both audio and video.

1940
Winston Churchill makes his first radio broadcast as prime minister.

1959
The construction of the first submarine powered by two nuclear reactors, the USS Triton, is completed on behalf of the US Navy. The ship is 447 feet long and 37 feet wide, and it has a top cruising range of 110,000 mile. Once it goes into service, it will be manned by a crew of 148. In 1960, it will become the first ship history to completely circumnavigate the globe while submerged.

1961
Venera 1 becomes the first man-made object to fly past another planet when it passes Venus, however, it lost contact with Earth a month earlier and fails to transmit the data it collects back to Earth.

1967
The USSR ratifies a treaty with England and the United States banning the use of nuclear weapons in space.

1971
Mars 2 is launched by the Soviet Union. The Mars probe’s mission is to conduct of a series of scientific investigations of the planet Mars and the space around it.

1975
Aryabhata, the first Indian satellite, is launched.

1980
The National Computer Conference (NCC) is held in Anaheim, California, over four days.

At the National Computer Conference, Apple Computer introduces the Apple III, featuring a 2MHz 6502A microprocessor, a 5.25-inch floppy drive, and 128KB RAM. Apple rented Disneyland for the occasion, and transported the Conference’s seven thousand attendants to the site on British double-decker buses. The system is the result of two years of development, and it represented many firsts of the company. Most notably, it was the company’s first business computer, it’s first departure from Apple II architecture, and it’s first real failure. Apple predicted that the system would be released in July, but in one of the most notorious cases of delay in computer history, the system wouldn’t reach stores until January of the following year. After its release, the Apple III would be plagued by a mountain of component failures that would ultimately lead to wide-reaching recalls. Price: US$4,340 to US$7,800

1983
NASA launches the Intelsat V satellite.

1987
Doubleday published the fantasy novel Daughter of Empire by Raymond Feist and Janny Wurts as a hardcover. (ISBN-13: 978-0385233934) It is the book in the Empire Trilogy. Length: 394 pages

A patent for a device for “keeping a head alive” is issued to Chet Fleming. (US No. 4,666,425) The device is a cabinet which provides the biochemical support for a sustaining the bodily processes of a severed head, including oxygenated blood and nutrients circulated through tubes connected to the subject’s arteries and veins that are exposed at the neck. The patent was tested on animals, but it suggests that it could be used to treat people suffering from terminal illnesses, as well.

1996
Sony Computer Entertainment reduces the price of the PlayStation in the US, from US$299 to US$199. Visit the official PlayStation website.

1997
Hewlett-Packard (HP) begins shipping the HP 300LX and 320LX handheld computers.

Intel announces the 133MHz Pentium processor with MMX technology for notebook computers. Price: US$284 in 1000-unit quantities

The Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode “Empok Nor” first airs. (No. 524) In it, one of the station’s plasma distribution manifolds breaks down, and a team is sent to Deep Space Nine’s abandoned sister space station, Empok Nor, to salvage components. Memory Alpha entry

Universal Studios releases the science fiction film The Lost World: Jurassic Park, directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Jeff Goldblum, Julianne Moore, Pete Postlethwaite, Arliss Howard, and Vince Vaughn, to 3,281 US theaters. It is the sequel to the 1993 film Jurassic Park. Produced on a budget of US$73 million, it will gross US$72,132,785 domestically in its opening weekend. Visit the film’s official website. IMDB listing MPAA Rating: PG-13 Running Time: 2 hrs 9 mins

Version 4.2 (Biltmore) of the Red Hat Linux operating system is released. Visit the official Red Hat website.

1998
All seven members of LØpht, a famous hacker collective based in Boston, Massachusetts, (Brian Oblivion, Kingpin, Mudge, Space Rogue, Stefan Von Neumann, John Tan, Weld Pond) testify before Congress that they could shut down the entire Internet in thirty minutes.

The Galaxy 4, a communications satellite, strays from it’s orbit and disrupts service to millions of pager customers and several television feeds. PageNet, one of the companies most severely effected, will estimates that as many as ninety percent its 40 to 45 million United States pager customers lost service.

The OpenBSD Project releases version 2.3 of the OpenBSD operating system. www.openbsd.org“>Visit the officialOpenBSD website.

1999
After a sixteen year lull, Twentieth Century Fox releases a new Star Wars movie, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, directed by George Lucas and starring Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor, and Natalie Portman to US theaters. Produced on a budget of US$115 million, the motion picture shatters box-office records with the largest single day gross in history – over US$28.5. The film goes on to gross US$64,820,970 in the opening weekend and more than US$102.7 million within its first five days. IMDB listing

LucasArts releases the racing game Star Wars: Episode I: Racer for the Nintendo 64 in the US. The game is based on the film Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. (ESRB: E)

The OpenBSD Project releases version 2.5 of the OpenBSD operating system. www.openbsd.org“>Visit the officialOpenBSD website.

The SourceGear Corporation releases the free open source word processor AbiWord for the first time. The name “AbiWord” is derived from the root of the Spanish word “Abierto” which means open. AbiWord is supported on BeOS, Linux, Mac OS X (PowerPC), Microsoft Windows, ReactOS, and other operating systems. Visit the official AbiWord website.

The Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode “Extreme Measures” first airs. (No. 723) In it, Sloan appears in Julian Bashir’s quarters, baited by a fake announcement of a cure for the plague ravaging the Changelings. When Sloan sees no way to get out of Bashir’s interrogation, he kills himself, but as his body dies, Bashir and O’Brien use an “optronic engrammatic interpreter” to infiltrate Sloan’s mind. Memory Alpha entry

The Star Trek: Voyager episode “Warhead” is first aired. (No. 525) In it, the crew recovers an artificially intelligent device embedded in rock, but once aboard Voyager, it takes control of the Doctor and reveals itself to be an active weapon of mass destruction. Memory Alpha entry

2001
Apple Computer opens the first two locations of the twenty-five retail stores it will open in the US by year’s end. One is located in McLean, Virginia and the other is located in Washington, D.C. Within the first weekend of their opening, they will attract 7,700 shoppers, and they will sell a combined total of US$599,000 of merchandise. Visit the official Apple Store website.

2003
Microsoft agrees to license Unix technology from the SCO Group. Visit the official SCO website.

2004
DreamWorks SKG releases the animated feature Shrek 2, directed by Andrew Adamson, Kelly Asbury, and Conrad Vernon and featuring the voice talents of Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz, Antonio Banderas, Julie Andrews, John Cleese, Rupert Everett, and Jennifer Saunders, to 4,163 US theaters. The film has the fourth highest grossing opening day in US history. Produced on a budget of US$150 million, it will gross US$108,037,878 domestically in its opening weekend. Visit the film’s official website. IMDB listing MPAA Rating: PG Running Time: 1 hr 33 mins

Microsoft releases Microsoft Office 2004 for the Macintosh. Visit the official website for Microsoft Office for Windows.

The Star Trek: Enterprise episode “Countdown” first airs. (No. 323) In it, Archer seeks support from the aquatic Xindi to stop the reptilians and find the Sphere Builders who are directing them. Memory Alpha entry

2005
British scientists at the University of Newcastle announce that they have successfully cloned human embryos for use of their stem cells in therapeutic treatments. The controversial announcement comes only briefly after the UN recently voted in favor of a non-binding ban on all human cloning.

The final version of the Netscape Browser, version 8.0, is released, followed a few hours later by version 8.0.1, which incorporates the key security patches of Firefox 1.0.4. Visit the official Netscape website.

Germany’s Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Supreme Court) rules that, for the purposes of exploitation rights contracts, DVD media does not fall into the category of as-yet-unknown technologies, for which contracts may not be made under German law, but is analogous to videocassettes.

Twentieth Century Fox releases the science fiction film Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, directed by George Lucas and starring Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, and Hayden Christensen, to 3,661 US theaters. The motion picture sets the record for the largest midnight opening of all-time with a US$16.5 million take. Within hours of the film’s release, a workprint of the film was leaked to filesharing networks. Produced with a budget of US$113 million, the films will gross US$108,435,841 domestically in its opening weekend. Visit the film’s official website. IMDB listing (MPAA Rating: PG-13) Running Time: 2 hrs 26 mins

Only hours after the long awaited final installment in the Star Wars series opens nationwide, a workprint DVD of the film is “leaked” to file sharing networks. It will be downloaded by over sixteen thousand users within the first hours of hitting the web.

TDK has unveils a four-layer recordable Blu-ray Disc with a 100GB data capacity capable of a 216Mbps write-speed, twice that of current technology. The announcement comes only a week after Toshiba’s unveiling of a three-layer disc with a 45GB capacity.

US Congressman Frank Wolf (Virginia, R) announces that the US Department of State will not use Lenovo Group computers on a classified network because of ongoing concerns about the company’s Chinese government ties, commenting that “It is no secret that the United States is a principal target of Chinese intelligence services.”

2006
Apple Computer opens its second retail store in New York City. The store is twenty thousand square foot large and located in the underground concourse of the General Motors Building on Fifth Avenue. It was designed by CEO Steven Jobs and built at a cost of US$9 million. Eagerly awaiting Apple fans form a line outside the 32-foot tall glass cube marking its location for hours before its opening in order to be among its first customers.

2007
At the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational in Seoul, South Korea, Blizzard Entertainment announces that it is developing Starcraft II, a sequel to its hit 1998 game StarCraft. Codename: Medusa

2008
In the case of United States v. Williams, the Supreme Court of the United States upholds a law making it a crime to send messages over the Internet offering or seeking (“pandering”) child pornography even when no such pornography exists.