The Great Geek Manual

1582
The Gregorian calendar (otherwise known as the New World calendar) is adopted in Italy, France, Spain, and Portugal. The preceding ten days are lost to history. Though this day followed October 4th, it is designated October 15th to bring the calendar into sync by order of the Council of Trent. October 5 – 14 are lost to history.

1764
Edward Gibbon observes a group of friars singing in the ruined Temple of Jupiter in Rome, which inspires him to begin work on The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

1783
Frenchman Jean- François Pilâtre de Rozier makes a tethered, captive-balloon ascent, in the gardens of La Muette. The Montgolfier-made balloon, Aerostat Reveillon, is “the first man to leave the Earth,” rising to the end of a 250 foot tether and remaining aloft for fifteen minutes before landing safely. Over the next few days, Rozier will increase the altitude of his flights to 6,500 feet.

1878
Thomas Edison incorporates the Edison Electric Light Company in New York City with a syndicate of leading financiers, including J.P. Morgan and the Vanderbilts, who advanced him US$30,000 for research and development. Edison’s goals is to connect his lights in a parallel circuit, subdividing the current, so that, unlike arc lights, which are connected in a series circuit, the failure of one light bulb will not cause a whole circuit to fail. The company will eventually become a part of General Electric in 1892.

1897
Aaron and Samuel Bloch carry the first U.S. Mail Pouch.

1910
The first air-sea rescue using radio saves the crew of the airship America.

1928
The airship LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin, christened on the July 8, 1928, lands in New Jersey after its first transatlantic crossing from Germany. It is 775 feet long and 100 feet high and had a cruising speed of 73 mph. The Naval Air Station Lakehurst, located in Lakehurst, New Jersey, was the western terminus for the commercial transatlantic flights of the German dirigibles Graf Zeppelin and, later, the Hindenburg.

1940
A five hundred pound German bomb scores a direct hit on the Broadcasting House in London during the 9pm BBC newscast, killing seven people. The BBC will not later report on the incident, as it is BBC policy not to comment on-air on such interruptions.

1950
The first American radio paging service, Aircall of New York City, sends the first page to a doctor who is on a golf course twenty-five miles away. Subscribers carry a six ounce pocket radio receiver and can hear their call numbers repeated in numerical sequence on the air at least once a minute within a thirty mile radius. Read more about the first pager at the website of The Center for the Study of Technology and Society.

1951
In the UK general election campaign for the October 25th election, each of the three main parties is allocated fifteen minutes of television time to make party political broadcasts. In the first party political broadcast on British television, Lord Samuel speaks on behalf of the Liberal Party.

1953
The British nuclear test detonation, Totem 1, takes place at Emu Field, South Australia.

1956
The first FORTRAN reference manual, written by by John W. Backus, is published six months before the first compiler’s release by International Business Machines (IBM). It’s only sixty pages long, with large print and wide margins. The language itself is relatively brief, but it will later be considered the first modern computer language. In particular, FORTRAN is the first cross-platform high level programming language. Prior to FORTRAN, computers could typically only run software written specifically for one brand of computer. Read the first Fortran manual.

1969
Following a failed attempt on October 1st, the interface message processor (IMP) installed at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) connects with the IMP at UCLA, creating the first two node computer network. The first message exchanged over the network is the word “LOG-IN,” which had caused the SRI system to crash in the earlier test.

1973
Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson present their first paper on Unix at the fourth ACM Symposium on Operating Systems Principles (SOSP) held October 15 – 17 at Purdue University. The paper will later be published in the July 1974 issue of Communications of the ACM.

1981
New Line Cinema releases the comedy film The Evil Dead, directed by Sam Raimi and starring Bruce Campbell, Ellen Sandweiss, and Betsy Baker, to 128 U.S. theaters. In it, five friends go up to a cabin in the woods where they find unspeakable evil lurking in the forest. They find the Necronomicon and the taped translation of the text. Once the tape is played, the evil is released. One by one, the teens become deadly zombies. With only one remaining, it is up to him to survive the night and battle the evil dead. The film was produced on a budget of US$375,000. IMDB listing Running Time: 1 hr 25 min

Professional cheerleader Krazy George Henderson leads what is thought to be the first audience wave in Oakland, California.

1982
According to Twin Galaxies, Darren Olson, scores a record-setting 15,207,353 points playing the Atari game Centipede at Reflection Fun Center in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Visit the official Twin Galaxies website.

1985
International Business Machines (IBM) announces its Token Ring network and PC Network software. The Token Ring system was co-developed with Texas Instruments (TI). Network transmission speed is 4Mbps. The system uses ordinary telephone wiring, and it costs approximately US$800 per computer to install.

1990
Apple Computer discontinues the Macintosh Plus, which featured the 8MHz Motorola 68000.

Apple Computer unveils the Macintosh Classic, a redesigned version of the Macintosh SE featuring an 8MHz Motorola 68000 microprocessor, an integrated 9-inch B/W monitor, and a 1.4MB floppy drive. The system’s affordability will make it popular among educational institutions, however, most users will primarily see the Classic as a wordprocessor. Price: US$1,000 – US$1,500

Apple Computer unveils the Macintosh LC, featuring a 16MHz Motorola 68020 microprocessor, 2MB RAM, a 40MB hard drive, and 1.4MB SuperDrive. Price: US$2,400

Apple Computer unveils the Macintosh IIsi, featuring a 20MHz Motorola 68030 microprocessor, 2MB RAM, a 40MB hard drive, a video port, and a 1.4MB SuperDrive. Price: US$3,769 or US$4569 with 5MB RAM and 80MB hard drive

Hackers crack into British Clearing Bank computers.

Intel introduces the 80386SL processor with a clock speed of 20MHz.

The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Suddenly Human” first airs. (No. 404) In it, Picard must help a human boy, raised by aliens, decide his future. Memory Alpha entry

1992
Digital Pictures releases Night Trap for personal computers and Sega game consoles in the U.S. Although the game is a pioneer in the field of full motion video, it will also become highly controversial due to a full-motion scene in which of a young girl in a nightgown is murdered, though the scene is intended to be comedic. It is one of the first games to ever feature a real-life media star, television actress Dana Plato of the popular television sitcom Diff’rent Strokes. Here again, the move is controversial in that Plato had recently had (as was widely publicized in the media) breast implants and appeared in Playboy magazine. Parents widely feared that Plato’s involvement in the game would lend the otherwise innocent game sexual overtones. On December 16, 1993, both F.A.O. Schwarz and Toys “R” Us will remove the Sega CD version of Night Trap from store shelves in response to a December 9, 1993 joint Senate Judiciary and Government Affairs Committee hearing on video game violence that prominently and infamously examine both Mortal Kombat and Night Trap. The two games will later be cited as deciding factors leading to the development of the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) game industry ratings system. During the hearings, the game will be described as “disgusting,” “shameful,” “sick,” and “ultra-violent,” but most gamers believe that these declamations are only the result of Senators playing to the media. ESRB: M (Mature)

International Business Machines (IBM) reveals a loss of US$2.8 billion during the previous business quarter.

Sega releases the Sega Mega-CD video game console in the U.S. The system features a 12.5-MHz 16-bit Motorola 68000 processor, the same as the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, but with a higher clock rate.

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