The Great Geek Manual

Today is national Freethought Day, an observation of the end of the Salem Witch Trials celebrating secular freethinkers everywhere.

1692
The Salem Witch Trials are ended by a letter from colonial governor of Massachusetts, William Phips.

1773
Virginia opens America’s first insane asylum, for “persons of insane and disordered minds.”

1793
The cornerstone of Old East, the oldest state university building in the United States, is laid on the campus of the University of North Carolina.

1915
The Ford Motor Company manufactures its one millionth Model T automobile.

1923
Axel Petersen and Arnold Poulsen demonstrate their patented sound-film system using two interlocked machines, one for picture, one for optical sound, at the Palads Teatret, in Copenhagen. The system is subsequently used by Gaumont in France, Tonfilm in Germany, and Gaumont-British in the UK.

1946
The Radio Corporation of America (RCA) releases its cheapest model of table television set yet. The sight and sound receiver displays a picture just four by five inches. Price: US$225

1958
Texas Instruments (TI) demonstrates working Integrated Circuits (IC) to Thomas J. Watson, Jr., president of International Business Machines (IBM).

1964
The Soviet Union (USSR) launches the Voskhod 1 spacecraft. It’s the first spacecraft to carry multiple crew members as well as the first to carry either a scientist or a physician into space. In the rush to launch the mission before the NASA Gemini flights, the crew are launched without ejection seats, an escape tower, or even spacesuits (which in itself was a first). The mission will return television footage of the crew from space. The US will be left incensed that the Gemini flights had been upstaged, and the US-Soviet “Space Race” escalates. The three-man crew will return to Earth after sixteen orbits of the Earth, one day and seventeen minutes after its launched, using retro rockets just prior to impact in order to cushion the parachute landing. Visit the official NASA Project Gemini site.

1964
The Soyuz 7 spacecraft is launched. When it achieves orbit, it marks the first time in history that five people are in space at the same time.

1979
Pan Books publishes the science fiction novel The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams as a paperback in the UK. (ISBN: 0-330-25864-8) The novel is an adaptation of the first four parts of Adams’s radio series of the same name. It will top national book charts in its second week of release, and it will go on to sell over a quarter million copies of the book will be sold within three months of its release. Visit the BBC website for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Length: 180pp

1981
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Intel signs a ten year technology exchange agreement centering on Intel’s x86 microprocessor architecture.

1987
The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Code of Honor” first airs. (No. 104) In it, Tasha Yar is abducted by the leader of a people who abides by a strict code of honor, which results in a fight to the death. Memory Alpha entry

Pages: 1 2 3 4