1608
In the Netherlands, Hans Lippershey successfully complete the construction of the first optical telescope. Though there have been earlier telescopes, Lippershey will be the first to patent the device, though he’ll beat out Jacob Metius by only a matter of weeks. He will ultimately be credited with the invention and popularization of the telescope.
1836
Charles Darwin returns from his historical journey aboard the HMS Beagle to Falmouth, England.
1919
US President Woodrow Wilson suffers a massive stroke that leaves the left side of his body paralyzed and his left eye blind. He will remain largely disabled through the remainder of his term, leaving his second wife, Edith Wilson nominally in charge of his Presidential duties. Because the full extent of Wilson’s disability and his wife’s role in his presidency won’t be revealed to the public at large until after his death in 1921, Edith Wilson will sometimes be referred to as “the Secret President,” “the first woman to run the government,” and even “the first female president of the United States.”
1925
Scottish engineer John Logie Baird performs the first successful test of a television transmission system when he sends the first greyscale television images from one end of his attic laboratory to the other for the first time. The images are of a ventriloquist’s dummy he nicknamed “Stooky Bill” (“stooky” being slang for someone who moves woodenly and a colloquial term for the plaster cast used to immobilize bone fractures), followed soon after by images of William Edward Taynton, a twenty year-old who worked in the offices below Baird’s workshop. The images are transmitted at a rate of five frames a second with a 30-line vertical resolution. By 1927, Baird will succeed in transmitting a television signal from London to Glasgow, and in 1928, he’ll succeed in transmitting a signal from London to New York.
1935
The Hayden Planetarium in New York, the fourth planetarium in the US, opens. In the words of Charles Hayden, the planetarium’s mission is to give the public “a more lively and sincere appreciation of the magnitude of the universe… and for the wonderful things which are daily occurring in the universe.” Hayden believes that everyone should have the experience of feeling the “immensity of the sky and one’s own littleness.” Read more about the History of the Hayden Planetarium.
1942
First self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction is demonstrated in Chicago, Illinois.
1950
The first Peanuts comic strip written and illustrated by Charles M. Schulz is published in nine newspapers across the country. The series will run for 17,897 strips until February 13, 2000, the day after Schulz’s death, making it “arguably the longest story ever told by one human being”, according to Professor Robert Thompson of Syracuse University. At the peak of it popularity, the strip will appear in over 2,600 newspapers with an aggregate readership of 355 million people in 75 countries. The popularity of the strip will play an enormous role in establishing the four-panel comic strip as the industry standard in the United States. Visit Snoopy.com, the Official Peanuts website.
Regular television service begin in Netherlands, with signals transmitted from a converted chapel in Amsterdam.
1955
The ENIAC, the first general-purpose electronic computer in history, is decommissioned after nine years in service. The ENIAC was capable of performing five thousand operations per second, but it physically occupied over a thousand square feet of floor space.
1959
The television anthology series The Twilight Zone premiers on the CBS network with the episode “Where Is Everybody?.” In it, a man wanders an abandoned town struggling to remember who and where he is. The series will become one of the most influential programs in the history of television, establishing numerous story conventions and devices, the best known of which will be the unexpected twist that concludes each episode. The series will run for 156 episode over five seasons. Watch episodes of The Twilight Zone online.
1969
At UCLA, the first Interface Message Processor (IMP), built by BBN, is connected by Leonard Kleinrock and his group to the University’s SDS Sigma-7 Mainframe. On October 29th, the IMP will be used to send the world’s first long-distance host-to-host communication.
1982
According to Twin Galaxies, Mike Klaeger scores a record-setting 9,401,050 points playing the arcade game Killer at the Play it Again Inc. arcade in New Lenox, Illinois. Visit the official Twin Galaxies website.
According to Twin Galaxies, Steve Sanders scores a record-setting 3,165,300 points playing the Nintendo arcade game Donkey Kong at the Fun Factory arcade in Kansas City, Montana. Visit the official Twin Galaxies website.
1986
Microsoft releases Microsoft Works for the Macintosh.
1991
The alliance between Apple Computer and International Business Machines (IBM) formalize their alliance at a press conference in San Francisco. Under the terms of the agreement, the companies will manufacture systems based on Motorola’s PowerPC processor and establish two companies, Kaleida Labs and Taligent.
1992
International Business Machines (IBM) releases version 1.3 of the AIX PS/2 operating system. Visit the official IBM AIX website.
1996
US President Bill Clinton signs amendments to the Electronic Freedom of Information Act, requiring government agencies to make certain records available electronically online. Clinton says that the records reinforced “an important link between the United States government and the American people.” Read the Amendments at the US Department of Justice website.
1997
MIT publishes a freeware version of Pretty Good Privacy 5.0 for Linux.
2000
Corel announces a business partnership with Microsoft, under which Microsoft will acquire about a quarter of Corel’s stock for US$135 million. Under the terms of the partnership, Corel will integrate internet functionality into its software in accordance with Microsoft’s .NET strategy.
2001
Intel introduces the 1.2GHz Celeron processor, featuring a 16KB Level-1 data cache and a 100MHz system bus. Code-name: Tualatin Price: US$103 in 1,000-unit quantities
2002
The Star Trek: Enterprise episode “Minefield” first airs. (No. 203) In it, Enterprise snags a cloaked mine and Reed and Archer race to disable it during first contact with the Romulans. Memory Alpha entry
2006
Version 11.0 of the Slackware operating system. Slackerware is a Linux distribution specifically designed for simplicity and stability, but it is also notable for being the the most Unix-like Linux distribution. Visit the official Slackerware website.
2008
Apple Inc. releases version 2.2 of AppleTV. Visit the official AppleTV website.
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