The Great Geek Manual

1790
The United States federal Copyright Act is signed into law by president George Washington. The duration of the copyright prescribed under the law, which requires a record of the titled to be made prior to its publication in the district court where the author or proprietor resides, is fourteen years with an optional renewal period of a second fourteen.

1879
The first electric railway is launched during the Berlin Trades Exposition.

1927
The last Ford Model T rolls off the world-renounced assembly line, which had produced 15,007,003 vehicles.

1938
W2XBS broadcasts the film The Return of the Scarlet Pimpernel, starring Leslie Howard. During the film’s broadcast, the station’s projectionist plays the reels out of sequel, bringing the film to its conclusion twenty minutes early. After the debacle, the NBC network won’t be able to secure the first-run rights for a film for years to come.

1943
Construction begins on ENIAC at the University of Pennsylvania’s Moore School of Electrical Engineering in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The formal contract between the Moore School and the US Army doesn’t officially go into effect until July 1st. John Mauchly is the project’s chief consultant and J. Presper Eckert is the project’s chief engineer. It will take the school’s team approximately one year to design the ENIAC system another eighteen months and half a million dollars to build. By the time the system is fully operational, the war for which it the computer was meant to assist will be over.

1961
Leonard Kleinrock, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) student, submits his PhD thesis proposal, “Information Flow in Large Communication Nets,” which is the first paper on packet-switching (PS) theory, otherwise known as data networking theory, in history. Kleinrock will later head the team that establishes the first long-distance host-to-host connection that will be the forerunner of the internet. Read “Information Flow in Large Communication Nets” online.

1985
Apple Computer announces a corporate restructuring which will eliminate both its Apple II and Macintosh divisions, combining them into manufacturing and marketing divisions. As part of the move, Steve Jobs is removed from all his duties as as a division manager. He is given the job description of “global thinker,” is left with few responsibilities, and his new, remote office is privately dubbed “Siberia” by Apple insiders. Four months later, Jobs will resign his position to found NeXT. Visit the official website of Apple Computer.

1987
The first (legal) private radio station, Athena 98.4 FM, is launched in Greece.

1991
At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Chicago, Illinois, Sony announces the upcoming PlayStation video game system, which will be able to play Nintendo’s new 16-bit game cartridges, as well as games on compact disk (CD) media. The cost of the system is estimated at about US$400.

Sega releases the scrolling shooter Zero Wing for the Sega Mega Drive in Europe. The game is an adaptation of the popular arcade version. In the Sega Mega Drive version, an introductory scene is added to the game to expand on the game’s plot. The scene was translated to English from the original Japanese very poorly for the European release largely because the European version was rushed to market. The result is dialog such as “All your base are belong to us,” which will go on to become a pop culture catch phrase, especially popular in internet humor.

1994
TradeWave releases the first version (0.98-alpha) of the MacWeb web browser as freeware for the Mac OS.

The United States announces that it is no longer aiming its long range nuclear arsenal at the Soviet Union.

1996
Id Software releases the first person shooter (FPS) Quake for personal computers. The game will become wildly popular, largely due to the fact the it is one of first games playable over the internet at a time when the internet is just becoming popular. Visit the game’s official website. ESRB: M (Mature)

Lionsgate releases the science fiction film The Arrival, directed by David Twohy and starring Charlie Sheen to 1,693 US theaters. The film is reminiscent of the sixties television series The Invaders TV series. In it, a radio astronomer working for SETI discovers that humanity has been infiltrated by an alien race intent on altering the climate of the Earth for the purposes of colonization. It will gross US$4,806,763 domestically in its opening weekend. IMDB listing (MPAA Rating: PG-13) Running Time: 1 hr 49 mins

1998
Eidos Interactive releases Final Fantasy VII for Windows in the US. Visit the game’s official website. ESRB: T (Teen)

Macromedia releases version 3 of Flash multimedia authoring application. New features included in this version include Javascript plug-in integration, the movieclip element, and transparency. Visit the official Flash website..

1999
The Brazilian website Galoucura is hacked by “hexa”. View an archived version of the defaced website.

Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Microsoft Nathan Myhrvold, age 39, publicly denies that his upcoming one-year leave of absence, which was reported in the Monday, June 7 issue of Time magazine, is being forced upon him in any way. The article also hints that Microsoft’s President, Steve Ballmer, was forcing Myhrvold from his position amid reports that he had been spending more time on extravagant hobbies than focusing on his position.

Microsoft announces to Reuters News Service that the company has plans to phase out the use wholesale distributors for its home and retail division products over the coming year. The strategy will move the sales of Microsoft products by the nation’s twelve largest retail store chains, which account for eighty-five percent of the company’s retail sales, to in-house accounts. Visit the official Microsoft website.

The website of the Department of the Interior is hacked by “D”. The site is deface with a message protesting the on-going FBI raids targeting member of the GH hacking group. View an archived version of the defaced website.

2000
The website of Exploit-X is hacked by “IDoL”. View an archived version of the defaced website.

2001
Microsoft releases the Microsoft Office XP office suite. Visit the official Microsoft Office website.

2002
The total market value of the Microsoft Corporation reaches US$275.7 billion, making it the second most valuable company in the world. Visit the official Microsoft website.

2003
Citec releases the first official version (1.0) of the DocZilla GUI-based web browser for Linux and Windows. Visit the official DocZilla website.

2005
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) releases the Athlon 64 x2 Dual-Core 4200+, 4400+, 4600+, and 4800+ processors. The 4200+ and 4400+ processors feature clock speeds of 2.2 GHz and caches of 512KB. The 4600+ and 4800+ processors feature clock speeds of 2.4 GHz and caches of 1MB. Code-name: “Manchester” (4200+, 4400+) and “Toledo” (4600+, 4800+) Price: US$537, US$581, US$803, and US$1001, respectively, in 1000-unit quantities

2006
In Stockholm, the Swedish police raid of the host of The Pirate Bay bittorrent index. The same day, the membership of the Pirate Party, a Swedish political party that runs on a platform of intellectual property law reform, increases by a record five hundred members. The next day, an additional 930 new members register with the party, bringing the total membership to 3,611. The site will remain offline for three days. Once it reopens, its number of daily visitors will double, largely due to the media coverage surrounding the raid. Read an account of the raid at Torrent Freak. Visit the official Pirate Bay website..

2007
Apple releases an Apple TV model with a 160GB drive.

Microsoft Game Studios releases the first-person shooter (FPS) Halo 2 for Windows in North America. The game was initially released on November 9, 2004 for the Xbox. Visit the game’s official website. ESRB: M (Mature)