Arrrrrrr! September 19th be International Talk Like a Pirate Day, matey! It’s also Software Freedom Day.
1848
Hyperion, a moon of Saturn, is discovered by William Cranch Bond, George Phillips Bond, and William Lassell.
1928
The first talking cartoon film, Walt Disney’s Steamboat Willie, premieres at the Colony Theatre in New York, introducing Mickey Mouse.
1957
The United States conducted its first underground nuclear test, in the Nevada desert, at Area 12. The Atomic Energy Commission’s (AEC) first fully contained underground nuclear detonation, known as the Rainier event, detonates in a horizontal tunnel, about 47 meters (1600 feet) into the mesa and 274 meters (900 feet) beneath the surface.
1982
Research Professor Scott E. Fahlman proposes the use of an emoticon to express humor for the first time anywhere, in a message posted to the Carnegie Mellon University Computer Science department’s general bulletin board. While the use of emoticons will spread like wildfire, their origin will be lost for nearly two decades, until September 10, 2002, when the original post made by Scott Fahlman will be retrieved by Jeff Baird from an October 1982 backup tape of the spice vax (cmu-750x) server. Here is Scott’s original post:
19-Sep-82 11:44 Scott E Fahlman : – )
From: Scott E FahlmanI propose that the following character sequence for joke markers:
: – )
Read it sideways. Actually, it is probably more economical to mark
things that are NOT jokes, given current trends. For this, use
: – (
Read more at Fahlman’s University website. Read the original post at Microsoft.
1988
Apple Computer releases the Macintosh IIx, featuring a 16MHz Motorola 68030 processor, a 16MHz Motorola 68882 FPU, 1MB or 4MB of RAM, a DOS-compatible 1.4MB SuperDrive, an 800KB floppy drive, and the System 6.0.1 operating system. This is the first system to feature a SuperDrive, which will become one of the line’s biggest selling points. The system also marks the first release of the System 6.0.1 operating system. Code-name: Spock and Stratos
Price: US$7,769 or US$9,300 with a 40MB hard drive
The first Israeli satellite, Offek 1 (Hebrew for “Horizon”), is launched aboard a Shavit rocket from the Negev Desert, making Israel the ninth nation in space. It’s mission is to test the feasibility to satellite surveillance and conduct a number of scientific experiments.
1989
A hospital in Washington, D.C. suffers a computer system failure due to the overflow of a 16-bit word in its clock. The overflow forces hospital employees to perform many normally automated tasks by hand.
1991
AT&T acquires the NCR Corporation, a technology company specializing in solutions for the retail and financial industries, for US$7.4 billion. Visit the company’s official website.
Two German tourists accidentally discover Ötzi the Iceman, the most ancient human specimen ever found, in the Similaun glacier in the Alps on the Italian-Austrian border along with artifacts of his way of life. Mistaking it for a modern-day corpse, Austrian authorities extract the body using a small jackhammer, causing considerable damage. Some on-looker even went so far as to remove artifacts from the site. The mummified remains will later be dated to about 3300 BC, and they will offer an unprecedented insights into the lives of Copper Age Europeans. Later examinations of the contents of his his digestive system will reveal that he had eaten a meal not long before his death. The meal consisted of a bit of unleavened bread of einkorn wheat, one of the few domesticated grains used in the Iceman’s part of the world at this time, an herb or other green, and meat.
1995
The New York Times and the Washington Post publish the thirty-five thousand-word anti-technology manifesto of the Unabomber, entitled Industrial Society and Its Future, after the bomber threatened to continue his bombing campaign unless the piece was published. In the manifesto, Unabomber, Theodore John Kaczynski, argues that his bombings were an extreme but necessary measure required to attract attention to the erosion of human freedom precipitated by the modern technologies requiring large-scale organization. Bob Guccione“>Bob Guccione of Penthouse volunteered to publish it, but the Unabomber replied that, since Penthouse was less “respectable” than the other publications, he would “reserve the right to plant one (and only one) bomb intended to kill, after our manuscript has been published.” Read the full text of the Manifesto at Newshare.
1996
Apple Computer releases the System 7.5.5 Macintosh operating system.
Microsoft releases version 3.51.1057 SP5 of the Windows NT operating system. It is the last update to the Windows NT 3.51 system, which is the last version of Windows to run on an Intel 80386 processor.
1999
The website of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is hacked and deface by “The United Loan Gunman”.
2001
Version 1.6.5 of the Ruby programming language is released.
2003
Across the internet, computers are infected by a swiftly-spreading virus transmitted via e-mail messages claiming to be security update from the Microsoft Corporation Security Center that actually contains a worm that will later be known as “Gibe” or “Swen” that exploits a two year-old security flaw in the Internet Explorer web browser. Read more at Snopes.com.
Screen Gems releases the action horror film Underworld, directed by Len Wiseman and starring Kate Beckinsale, Scott Speedman, Michael Sheen, Bill Nighy, and Shane Brolly, to 2,915 US theaters. In it, a war has been raging between the Vampires and Lycan for centuries. Selene is a death dealer, assigned to hunt down and eradicate the last of the Lycan. When she comes across Michael Corvin who holds the key to end the war, she must decide where her loyalties lie. Produced on a budget of US$22 million, the film will gross US$21,753,759 domestically in its opening weekend. IMDB listing (MPAA Rating: R) Running Time: 1 hrs 55 min
2005
Nintendo releases the Game Boy Micro handheld video game system in North America. The system is released in silver and black, with three possible face plates. The system can play at Game Boy Advance cartridges, but not earlier Game Boy cartridges. Visit the system’s official website. Price: US$99.99
The science fiction television series Surface premieres on the NBC network in the US. (No. 101) The series will run for fifteen episode over one season. In the series, strange things begin occurring in the oceans after stars fall from the sky and into the water, and it’s up to a Marine biologist and a high school student to discover the truth behind the mysterious occurrences before its too late. TV.com entry
A security breach at the University of Georgia’s College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences that exposed the personal information of about 1,600 employees, including their Social Security numbers is discover. The perpetrator will not be discovered and officials, including investigators at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, will come to suspect that the exploit was accomplished by a foreign hacker.
2006
FairUse4WM is released. FairUse4WM is a tool written by Viodentia for removing Digital Rights Management protections from Windows Media audio files downloaded from services such as Napster, Rhapsody Music, Urge, and Yahoo Unlimited,.
The fifth generation iPod is updated. This update includes a brighter screen, a search feature, gapless playback, support for iPod games, newly designed earphones, and a longer video playback time. Support for iPod games and gapless playback were enabled on original fifth generation classics through a firmware update. 60GB models are replaced by an 80GB model, and prices are reduced by US$50 for both the 30GB (US$249) and the 80 GB (US$349) models. Visit the iPod’s official website.
Microsoft begins testing a new video-sharing service similar to YouTube called Soapbox. On July 21, 2009 Microsoft will announce that the service is closing to uploads at the end of July and shutting down entirely at the end of August 2009. Visit the official Soapbox website.
2007
The GNOME Project releases version 2.20 of the GNOME operating system. Among other improvements, this new version includes significant improvements to the system’s image collection interface and file manager. Visit the official GNOME website.
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