1506
Christopher Columbus dies in poverty in Spain.
1747
An experiment to remedy scurvy among sailors during long sea voyages is conducted by British ship surgeon, James Lind, on the HMS Salisbury. He regulates the diets of the sailors, and especially included lemons and oranges. Positive results quickly prove that scurvy and the huge number of deaths it causes could easily be remedied.
1830
D. Hyde of Reading, Pennsylvania patents the fountain pen; however, the first truly practical fountain pen will be invented in 1884 by Lewis Waterman.
1856
David Edward Hughes of Louisville, Kentucky is issued a patent for the first telegraph ticker that successfully prints type. (US No. 14,917) The following year, he will sell the rights to his invention for US$100,000 to the Commercial Co.
1891
The first public demonstration of a prototype Kinetoscope is given at Edison’s laboratory for approximately 150 members of the National Federation of Women’s Clubs. A three second “film” directed, produced by and starring William Dickson is used for the demonstration. The film depicts William Dickson waving in greeting. Subsequently, the film will become known as the “Dickson Greeting“. The New York Sun will describe what the clubwomen saw in the “small pine box” they encountered:
In the top of the box was a hole perhaps an inch in diameter. As they looked through the hole they saw the picture of a man. It was a most marvelous picture. It bowed and smiled and waved its hands and took off its hat with the most perfect naturalness and grace. Every motion was perfect….
1895
The first company specifically incorporated to produce films, the Lamda Company, shows a four-minute boxing film to a paying audience using its wide-film Eidoloscope projector (invented by Eugène Lauste) at 153 Broadway, New York.
1901
Claude Grivolas, one of principal shareholders of Pathe, a Paris, France movie company, invents the first projector that produces three-dimensional pictures.
1910
The first colour news film of historical significance, the funeral of King Edward VII, is filmed in Kinemacolor.
1920
Montreal, Quebec radio station XWA broadcasts the first regularly scheduled radio programming in North America.
1921
Marie Curie is presented with a gram of Radium worth US$100,000 at the White House, in Washington, D.C.
1927
At 7:40am, Charles Lindbergh takes off from Roosevelt Field in Long Island, New York, aboard the “Spirit of St. Louis” monoplane on his historic first solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean. He will arrive in France thirty-three and one-half hours later.
1930
for the first time, an airplane was catapulted from a U.S.dirigible. A Vought two-seat observation plane was catapulted from the airship Los Angeles and then flew to the carrier Saratoga.
1932
Amelia Earhart takes off for Ireland from Habor Grace, Newfoundland, to become the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. She will later land her plane in Ireland after a thirteen-hour, thirty-minute flight from Canada.
1939
The first scheduled transatlantic airmail service is inaugurated. A four-engine Pan American airplane, the Yankee Clipper, flies from Port Washington, New York via Horta to Lisbon, Portugal.
1940
The first prisoners arrive at the newly created Auschwitz concentration camp.
Inventor Igor Sikorsky demonstrated his helicopter invention to the public.
1949
In the United States, the Armed Forces Security Agency, the predecessor of the National Security Agency, is established.
1956
The first hydrogen fusion bomb (H-bomb) to be dropped from an airplane exploded over Namu Atoll at the northwest edge of the Bikini Atoll. The fireball that resulted was four miles in diameter. It was designated as “Cherokee,” a part of “Operation Redwing”, a series of seventeen nuclear test detonations conducted from May to July 1956 at the Bikini and Eniwetok atolls.
1958
Robert Baumann obtains a patent for a satellite. (US No. 2,835,548)
1964
The first US atomic-powered lighthouse is put into operation in the Chesapeake Bay, at the Baltimore Harbor, in Maryland. Designed to supply a continuous flow of electricity for ten years without refueling, the 60-watt nuclear generator generated heat from Strontium-90 in the form of Strontium Titinate, a safe radioisotope. The heat is converted to electricity by 120 pairs of lead telluride thermocouples. Complete with shielding, the unit is only 34.5 inches high and 22 inches in diameter. It was designed and produced by the nuclear division of Martin-Marietta Corp.
1967
The Soviets demonstrate the world’s largest atom smasher, which is nearly completed.
1983
The discovery of the virus that causes AIDS is first published in the journal Science by Luc Montagnier and Robert Gallo individually.
The film Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone, starring Peter Strauss, Molly Ringwald, and Ernie Hudson, is released to North American theaters. Parts of the film are shown in 3-D. In the film, three women make an emergency landing on a planet plagued by a fatal disease, but are captured by dictator Overdog. A bounty hunter named Wolff travels to the planet to rescue them and meets Niki, the only earthling left from a medical expedition. Combining their talents, they try to rescue the women. The movie’s tagline is, “The first movie that puts you in outerspace.” IMDB listing
1988
Apple Computer contracts with Quantum Computer Services to create AppleLink – Personal Edition. The price is US$6-15 per hour, US$35 for software and the first year’s subscription, and US$35 per year for the following years.
The film Willow, directed by Ron Howard and starring Val Kilmer, Joanne Whalley, and Warwick Davis, is released to US theaters. George Lucas, who produced the film had originally planned to film an adaptation of The Hobbit; however, unable to secure the rights to the book, he wrote Willow, which shares a great many similarities with J.R.R. Tolkien’s novel, and its sequel, The Lord of the Rings. The film was notable for employing more dwarfs than any production in many years, and was widely praised by the “little person” community for employing Warwick Davis as the lead. The film also uses special effects to morph the old sorceress into various animals, a revolutionary effect. Produced on a budget of US$35 million, the film will gross US$8,300,169 in the opening weekend. IMDB listing
Judge Robert Aguilor agrees to split the Apple Computer vs. Microsoft case into two separate phases, to decide if Microsoft had been licensed to use Macintosh features in Windows 2.03, and, if necesssary, to determine if Microsoft had violated Apple’s copyrights.
1990
The Hubble Space Telescope sends its first photograph from space, an image of a double star 1,260 light years away. Visit the official Hubble website.
1991
The Spring Comdex trade show is held in Atlanta, Georgia.
1992
Sega of America announces a partnership with Sony Electronic Publishing to develop video games on compact disks. Sega plans to introduce a CD-ROM player for the Sega Genesis game system in November for US$299.
1993
Intel announces availability of the Pentium processor. Prices: US$878 (60MHz) and US$965 (66MHz)
1994
Capcom releases Alien vs. Predator to arcades worldwide.
1995
Microsoft Corp. and Intuit Inc. announce that they have agreed to terminate their planned merger after the United States Department of Justice began an investigation of whether or not the move would give Microsoft too much dominance in the personal finance software market. Microsoft pays Intuit US$46.25 million in compensation for terminating the deal. Microsoft had originally agreed to acquire Intuit in October 1994 in a deal worth approximately US$2 billion.
1996
Apple Computer Inc. joins the Network Computer Coalition.
The Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode
The Quickening first airs. In the episode, Kira, Dax and Bashir respond to a distress call from a planet in the Gamma Quadrant where the population was infected with an incurable disease by the Jem’Hadar two hundred years ago.
The Star Trek: Voyager episode “Basics, Part I” first airs. In the episode, Seska and the Kazon seize control of Voyager and abandon its crew on a primitive planet.
1997
Centaur Technology shows first samples of its IDT-C6 Pentium-class microprocessor.
2000
Konami releases Metal Gear Solid for the Game Boy Color in the US.
2002
Activision releases Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix for computers. The sequel to Soldier of Fortune was developed by Raven Software to be a more “realistic” game, with tactical shooters like Counter-Strike and Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six as inspirations rather than Quake.
Apple Computer, Inc. releases the iBook G3 Mid 2002, available at 600 or 700MHz, featuring ATI Mobility Radeon 16M VRAM, 14 inch Active-matrix TFT Display, and the Mac OS X 10.1 operating system.
Rockstar Games release Grand Theft Auto III (GTA3) for Windows in North America.
2003
The final episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, “Chosen” first airs. “Chosen” depicts the events leading to and including the final battle between the potential Slayers, organized by Buffy and The First Evil. Spike uses the amulet and brings about the end of Sunnydale, and the Hellmouth. The first episode of the series, which ran seven seasons, first aired March 10, 1997.
Microsoft Game Studios releases Rise of Nations for Mac OS X and Windows. Rise of Nations is a real-time strategy computer game, featuring eighteen civilizations, which are playable through eight Ages of world history.
2004
The first picture of Titan with better resolution than any Earth based observation is released. It was taken May 5 from a distance of 29.3 million kilometers (18.2 million miles).
Rockstar North releases Grand Theft Auto: Vice City for the PlayStation 2 in Japan.
The United Paramount Network (UPN) announces that Star Trek: Enterprise had been renewed for a fourth season, but that the show will be moved from Wednesday to Friday nights. Traditionally, Friday nights have been considered “Death Row” for a major television series in the US, most especially for science fiction. Most viewers are occupied with social engagements and other non-television activities on Friday nights, leaving ratings very weak and generated by unintended audiences. Paramount cut its per-episode price and reduced the number of episodes in a season from twenty-four to twenty-two so that the series would be more financially attractive to the struggling UPN. Fans and critics widely assume that the reason the series has been renewed is so that Paramount will have enough episodes for syndication after the series is canceled. One hundred episodes are traditionally required for syndication. This move echoes the rescheduling of the original Star Trek to a Friday night time slot for its third season prior to its own cancellation.
2005
The Consumer Product Safety Commission orders a recall of some Apple PowerBook G4 batteries. The official CPSC recall notice states that an internal short can cause the battery cells to overheat, posing a fire hazard to consumers. Consumers should stop using recalled products immediately unless they have been otherwise instructed. The defective batteries can be returned to Apple for replacement. Approximately 128,000 defective units were sold.
Namco releases Pac-Pix for the Nintendo DS in Europe.
2006
Cassini-Huygens flies past within 1880 km (1175 mi) of Titan, the largest moon of the planet Saturn.
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