The Great Geek Manual

Today is Armistice Day or Remembrance Day or Veterans Day in Western nations. The holiday is otherwise known as World War I Memorial Day. It marks the anniversary of the cessation of the War at 11am in 1918. In many regions, it’s tradition to bow your head in remembrance at the 11th hour on this, 11th day of the 11th month.

1572
Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe begins recording his observations of a supernova in the constellation Cassiopeia. For two weeks, it will be brighter than any other star in the sky, even remaining visible during the day. It will remain visible to the naked eye for another six months, until March 1574. Brahe will later publish his observation in the book De Nova Stella, which is the origin of the the word “nova.”

1675
Gottfried Leibniz demonstrated integral calculus for the first time to find the area under the graph of y = f(x) function.

1851
The first US patent for a telescope is issued to Alvan Clark of Cambridge, Massachusetts. (US No. 8,509)

1887
A Photograph is used in a newspaper advertisement for the first time in history. The ad is for Harrison Patent Knitting Machine Co. of Manchester, England and it is in published in this day’s edition of The Parrot, which is published in Manchester.

1925
The discovery of cosmic rays is announced by Robert Andrews Millikan, who coined their name, in Madison, Wisconsin.

1930
Albert Einstein and Leó Szilárd are granted a patent for their invention, the Einstein refrigerator. (US No. 1,781,541)

1937
Dr. Clinton Joseph Davisson, of Bell Telephone Laboratories, and George Paget Thomson of London University wins the Nobel Prize in Physics “for their experimental discovery of the diffraction of electrons by crystals.”

The first combined handset telephone is introduced commercially. Before this date, all phones had separate ear and mouth pieces.

1946
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) recruits its first television advertiser, Bristol-Myers, for the program Geographically Speaking, which has been on the air since October 27th.

1966
NASA launches Gemini 12. The purpose of the Gemini program is to demonstrate that an astronaut can outside a spacecraft in the vacuum of space. The crew of the Gemini 12, Jim Lovell and Edwin Aldrin, are the first to be trained underwater in preparation for their mission. During the spaceflight, Aldrin will spend two hours and twenty minutes on a tethered space-walk, during which he photographs star fields and retrieves a micrometeorite collector among other small chores. The successful space walk will be the final proof of the feasibility of extravehicular activity. Gemini 12 will be the last of NASA’s two man series.

1968
The International Business Machines (IBM) Data Processing Division (DPD) demonstrates the IBM 2980 financial terminal, which will be available to banks under special order in Miami.

1975
The International Business Machines (IBM) Data Processing Division (DPD) announces two new versions of the IBM System/370 mainframe computers, Models 115 and 125.

1986
The Burroughs Corporation and Sperry Rand merge to become Unisys, the world’s second largest computer manufacturer. Visit the official Unisys website.

1988
The discovery of the oldest known insect fossils, which are believed to be approximately 390 million years old, is reported in the journal Science.

1991
The Star Trek: The Next Generation releases “Unification (Part 2)” (No. 508) Spock attempts to unify the Vulcans and Romulans in peace, but he realizes too late that he has fallen into a Romulan trap. Memory Alpha entry

1992
Bobby Fischer wins his re-match with Boris Spassky in Sveti Stefan, Yugoslavia. The match was organized by banker Jedzimir Vasiljevic. Fischer has ten wins, five losses, and fifteen draws. He receives US$3.65 million for winnings and Spassky receives US$1.5 million.

1994
Jim Clark announces to his Mosaic Communications employees that the company will now be named Netscape Communications Corporation.

1996
Adobe Systems releases the version 4.0 of the Photoshop graphic editing application for Macintosh, Power Macintosh, and Windows systems. This version includes the addition of adjustment layers, an Actions palette, and enhanced Web support. It also refines existing features by updating the user interface with a Navigator palette, guides and grids, and a standardized toolbox. This version also features a notably increased set of system requirements, including a minimum of 16MB of application RAM (32MB recommended) and 25MB of hard disk space. Visit the application’s official website. Price: US$895

1998
America Online (AOL) acquires Personalogic, Inc., a company well known for its online consumer guides.

Capcom releases the survival horror game Resident Evil 2: Dual Shock Version for the PlayStation in the US. ESRB: M (Mature)

Interactive Magic (iMagic) announces plans to merge MPG-net with iMagic Online, a “pay-per-play” network.

International Business Machines (IBM) unveils the largest hard drive ever designed for personal computers. The one billion byte (25GB) drive called the Deskstar 25GP is intended for home computers while the notably faster 22GB model, the Deskstar 22GXP, is intended for commercial applications.

Yahoo! launches Yahoo! Spain.

2000
Sony unveils the Sony Dream Robots (SDR-3X), humanoid robots, at the Robodex 2000 trade show, the world’s first exhibition of human partner-type robots, in Yokohama, Japan. The SDR-3X can perform a variety of relatively high-speed, autonomous movements, including: walking backward, forward, or sideways even over uneven terrain at a speed of up to fifteen meters per minute; turn to the left or right while walking (up to ninety degrees with each step); stand up from the position of lying on its back or stomach; kick a ball; and dance to a wide range of music. The robot is equipped with speech and image recognition software and operates on the Aperios real-time operating system. It is only 50cm tall and weighs 50kg.

2002
Capcom releases the survival horror game Resident Evil Zero for the GameCube in the US. ESRB: M (Mature)

Microsoft and Samsung announce that they will develop a a low-cost handheld computer, which will feature a Samsung 200 MHz ARM9-based S3C2410 processor, the Microsoft Pocket PC operating system, 32MB memory, a 3.5-inch display, and Secure Digital card support.

Ubisoft releases the tactical shooter Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon for the Xbox in the US. Visit the game’s official website. ESRB: M (Mature)

2003
2004
Microsoft Game Studios releases the first-person shooter Halo 2 for the Xbox in Europe and Japan. Visit the game’s official website. CERO: 15+, PEGI: 16+

2005
Fox airs an episode of the television program Killer Instinct with a story centered around a popular online video game with explicit violence, in which teenagers playing the game are depicted with the ability to unlock sexually explicit scenes and mini-games. The episode is a reference to the real world Hot Coffee minigame controversy, in which a normally inaccessible minigame in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas can be accessed using a mod.

France issues twenty postage stamps depicting “Heroes of Video Games.” The stamps feature Ad boy, Donkey Kong, Lara Croft, Link, Mario, Pac-Man, Prince of Persia, Rayman, The Sims, and Spyro.

Sony BMG Music Entertainment announces that it has suspended production of music CDs with the rootkit-like XCP copy protection technology that was designed to prevent users from duplicating music after it is discovered that certain viruses can exploit it as a “backdoor.” The announcement comes following ten days of controversy arising from the discovery Sony’s secretive use of the technology.

2006
Sony releases the PlayStation 3 video game system in Japan. The seventh generation console features a 3.2GHz PowerPC-base Core Cell Processor, a 550MHz RSX GPU, 256MB XDR Main RAM, and 256MB GDDR3 VRAM.