1866 – Herbert George Wells was born in Bromley, England. He would grow up to write under the name H.G. Wells and help from the genre of science fiction.

1994 – Microsoft Windows NT 3.5 released

Microsoft releases the second version of the Windows NT OS – Wiis ndows NT 3.5 in two versions to have a server and workstation version NT 3.1 and was the first Windows NT version to have a Server and Workstation version. NT 3.5 integrated Winsock and TCP/IP support for dial-up and networking. NT 3.5 also initiated FTP and LPR printer support. The VFAT option also allowed for naming conventions up to 255 characters. This version was a problematic one, especially since it couldn’t install on a machine with a Pentium processor inside. Therefore, NT 3.5.1 was released in 1995.

1996 – Programming Error May Have Contributed to Plane Crash

A New York Times article warned against the dangers of trusting computers too completely after an investigation revealed that programming error may have contributed to the crash of American Airlines Flight 965 in Colombia in December 1995. The pilots apparently selected the first choice of a beacon to guide the plane’s autopilot to a landing without checking that it was what they actually wanted. As a result, the plane was directed 100 miles off course, with the devastating result of 159 deaths.

1999 – Google came out of beta. The young company announced its new Google Scout feature and the launch of its new website, removing the beta designation from the Google search engine.

2000 – Kevin Mitnick was released form a Lompoc, California prison after almost five years of incarceration.

2003 – Galileo Completes Jupiter Mission

After fourteen years in space, eight of those as the first man-made object orbiting Jupiter, the unmanned NASA spacecraft Galileo is sent into the atmosphere of the giant planet. NASA decided to end Galileo’s mission in his manner in order to avoid any possibility of it colliding with one of Jupiter’s moons and potentially contaminating it with bacteria from Earth. How sanitary of them.

2015 – Christopher Poole aka ‘moot’ sold 4Chan to its inspiration 2Channel. Hiroyuki Nishimura became 4Chan’s president.

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1848 – At noon in the library of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, member of the former Association of American Geologists and Naturalists met to create the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

1954 – First FORTRAN Program Runs

The first FORTRAN program is executed. FORTRAN was developed by IBM scientists who were looking for a better way to program the IBM 704 mainframe computer. It quickly became the dominant programming language for scientific and engineering application and still is used today, especially in the area of high-performance computing.

1983 – RSA Algorithm Patent Is Awarded

The RSA algorithm, one of the world’s most widely-used encryption methods, had been developed in 1977. Scientific American columnist Martin Gardner wrote a description of the algorithm in his “Mathematical Games” column, mentioning that readers could send a self-addressed stamped envelope to receive a copy of the MIT technical memorandum describing it. More than three copies of the papers until after the patent was issued six years later due to members of the National Security Agency raising questions about the legality of making the information available.

2012 – Makerbot Industries released the Replicator 2 3D printer, meant for non-expert users, and providing 100 micron resolution printing. They also announced the opening of a store in Manhattan.

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1982 – Turn That Frown … Sideways

In a posting made to a Carnegie Mellon bulletin board, Professor Scott Fahlman proposes the first known use of emotions (also known as smilicons or smileys). While the use of emoticons became widespread during the 80’s and 90’s, their origin remained unknown until September 10, 2002, when the original message was retrieved from backup tape.

1989 – About 100 hospitals that used software from Shared Medical Systems saw their computers go into a loop when the date was entered. The day was 32,768 days from January 1, 1980, which caused a system overflow.

1995 – International Talk Like a Pirate Day was first celebrated by John Baur (OI’ Chumbucket) and Mark Summers (Cap’nSlappy), of Albany, Oregon. They had come up with the idea on June 6^th while playing racquetball, but that was D-Day. The 19^th was Summers’ ex-wife’s birthday, and the only day he could reliably remember.

2011–Netflix Qwikster

Netflix CEO Reed Hasting made one of the biggest blunders of 2011 when he announced not only was the DVD section of Netflix getting a new name, but also that section was up for sale. Qwikster used to be the twitter handle of a pot-smoking Elmo character. Since then, Hastings apologized and the company reeled back the statement. However, it was not before they lost 2/3 of their stock and over 800,000 subscribers.

2012 – Beijing Residents Alerted of Anti-Japan Protest Ban via Text Message

With tensions between China and Japan escalating because of a disputed territorial claim over a chain of islands, the Chinese government alerted Beijing residents of a ban on anti-Japan protests via text message. Previous protests had turned violent and resulted in damage, vandalism, and the detainment of a number of protesters. In conjunction with other factors, SMS text messaging appeared to be successful as the delivery mechanism for the citywide announcement. Only small-scale protests were reported in some regions. As citizens grow more dependent on mobile and social media technology for the open latest news and alerts, centralized authorities have gained more open access to, and possibly influence of, the general populace’s daily lives.

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1830 – America’s first native locomotive, the “Tom Thump” lost a race to draft horse at Ellicotts Mills, Maryland.

1926 – James Cooley Born

James Cooley, co-creator of the fast Fourier transform, was born. Working with John Tukey, Cooley in 1965 worked out a vast improvement to a common mathematical algorithm called the Fourier transform. Although the algorithm had been useful in computing, its complexity required too much time. While working at IBM, Cooley built on Tukey’s ideas for a swifter version.

1927 – The Columbia Phonograph Broadcasting System went on the air with 47 radio stations. Within two years it would be sold and become the Columbia Broadcasting System and later simply CBS.

1989 – NeXTSTEP OS Released

NeXT Computer releases version 1.0 of NeXTSTEP, an object-oriented, multitasking operating system. Originally designed to run on NeXT’s brand of computers, it was later ported to other architectures such as the Intel x86.

Often considered years ahead of its time, NeXTSTEP brought to market many advanced features that were not seen together in any other operating system for nearly 10 years. Its powerful object-oriented development environment was also used for the creation of the World Wide Web.

In 1997 Apple acquired NeXT Computer to build their next-generation operating system upon the NeXTSTEP architecture, later named Mac OS X. Today’s iOS that runs on iPhone and iPads is descended from Mac OS X and NeXTSTEP.

I had the opportunity to use NeXTSTEP in 1992 for a computer science class at the University of Illinois. I immediately recognized how powerful it was, yet didn’t fully appreciate what I was experiencing until years later. It really wasn’t until the late 1990’s and early 2000’s that other operating system brought together the power and reliability of NeXTSTEP.

1990 – NeXTstation Computers

The NeXTstation is finally released. It used the 68040 Motorola processor running 33MHz and the 68882 math co-processor running at 25 MHz. 2.88 MB floppy, 8MB RAM, monochrome monitor, all for $4.995.if you wanted 4096 colors, that would cost you – $7,995.

1998 – The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers aka ICANN was created in order to take over Internet administrative tasks from the US Government. The most famous of those tasks is overseeing the Domain Name System.

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1822 – Jean-Francois Champollion, permanent secretary of the French Academie des Inscriptions, presented his Lettre a M. Dacier, describing his solution to the mystery of the Hieroglyphic inscriptions on the Rosetta Stone. A nifty bit of decryption.

1971 – RCA Withdraws from the Computer Market

RCA withdraws from the computer market after losing $490 million. RCA, one of the “Seven Dwarfs,” a group that included Honeywell, Control Data Corporation, Univac, Burroughs, NCR, and General Electric, had tried to compete with IBM in the mainframe computer market, but were ultimately unsuccessful. RCA’s Spectra 70/45 computer was launched as a competitor to the IBM 360 and RCA heavily lauded its reliance on monolithic ICs as opposed to the 360’s hybrid SLT modules. The Spectra had some cross-compatibility with 360 instruction sets and software, but the operating systems proved unable to facilitate easy transfer of programs across the two systems. The 360 gained a stranglehold in the market, and in part led to RCA’s, and the other Seven Dwarfs’, demise in the mainframe computer market.

1976 – NASA Unveils Enterprise

NASA rolls out the first Space Shuttle, Enterprise, from its assembly facility to a waiting crowd. Included in the crowd was a delegation of actors from the Star Trek TV series. Originally to be named Constitution, a write-in campaign by Star Trek fans convinced President Gerald Ford and NASA to rename the Space Shuttle.

The Enterprise was a prototype shuttle, designed for the early testing phase of the Space Shuttle program. It was built without engines or a functional heat shield. While it performed various atmospheric test flights, and was originally intended to be retrofitted for spaceflight, it was determined that it would be less expensive to simply build new shuttles. Therefore the Enterprise never did actually fly into space.

1991 – The first version of the Linux kernel (0.01) was posted to a Finnish FTP server in Helsinki. Originator Linus Torvalds wanted to call the OS FreaX, but the FTP admin didn’t like the name and renamed it Linux.

2007 – AOL announced plans to refocus the company on advertising and relocate its corporate headquarters from Dulles, Virginia to New York City.

2008 – Sarah Palin’s Email Hacked

Sarah Palin succumbed to a hacker in a different way – through her Yahoo! Email. The infiltrator gained access by using common information to reset the password. David Kernel then posted her email and new password on 4chan.org under the alias “Rubico”. It showed that by using common information to set up an account, it could also turn into a “back door” for someone who would know that information.

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1890 – Louis Le Prince boarded a train to Paris at Dijon Station. Neither he nor his bags ever arrived and his disappearance was never solved. In 1988 he had patented a system for taking 16 pictures a second and playing them back as a moving picture.

1959 – The first successful photocopier, the Xerox 914, was introduced at the Sherry-Netherland hotel in New York City. One of them caught fire. The demo that was carried live on television did not catch fire.

1985 – Steve Jobs Resigns from Apple

Five month after losing control of the company in a boardroom battle with John Sculley, Steve Jobs resigns from Apple. Jobs go on to found NeXT and purchase Pixar before eventually returning to Apple.

1997 – Steve Jobs Named Interim CEO of Apple

Twelve years to the day after resigning from Apple, Steve Jobs is named Interim CEO of Apple. Only seven months earlier, Jobs’ company NeXT was purchased by Apple and just two months earlier Gil Amelio resigned as Apple CEO. Much of the technology acquired with the purchase of NeXT was used to build the Mac OS X operating system, which became the core of the iOS operating system that runs the iPhone and iPad.

1997 – Microsoft Unveils Improved WebTV

Microsoft Corp. unveils an improved version of WebTV after purchasing the Silicon Valley startup earlier in the year for $425 million – a price that worked out to $8,500 for each of the company’s existing customers. The purchase reflected Microsoft’s ongoingeffort to create systems that integrate the Internet, preferably using it’s Internet Explorer World Wide Web browser. Because many more American families own television sets than own personal computers, the ability to browse the Web, do interactive shopping, or otherwise turn the TV into a network computer could dramatically increase Internet accessibility.

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1947 – RCA released the 12AX7 vacuum tube for public sale. The miniature dual triode vacuum tube with high voltage gain became popular with tube amplifier enthusiasts and has been in continuous production since. The tube is also known as the ECC83 in the European Union.

1947 – The Association for Computing Machinery is Founded

The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is founded. With more than 100,000 members from over 100 countries as of 2014, ACM organizes conferences and educational workshops to exchange information on computing technology.

1986 – The Last Apple II

Apple introduces the Apple IIgs, the last major product release in the Apple II series of personal computers. Blending the older Apple II series computers with aspects from the Macintosh computer, the advanced “graphics and sound” capabilities of the IIgs (hence the name) was ahead of other contemporary computers such as the Macintosh and IBM PC. However, as Apple chose to focus on the Macintosh line of computers, Apple eventually ceased development of the Apple II series. The last IIs was produced in December of 1982.

2008 – Best Buy Purchased Napster

Napster has been trying to solidify their name since they went legit. They forged the way with music downloads in the 1990’s but struggled after. Enter best buyowned the service until 2011 when Napster merged with Rhapsody. Best Buy still has a minor stake in the music sharing software.

2014 – Microsoft announced they would purchase Mojang, makers of the Minecraft universe Mojang’s founders, Notch, Carl and Jacob announced they would leave the company.

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1959 – First Man-Made Object on Moon

The soviet space probe Luna 2 crashes onto the surface of the Moon, becoming the first man-made object to reach the Moon, as well as the first man-made object to reach any celestial body.

1959 – Bank of America Accepts the ERMA System

Bank of America accepts the ERMA (Electronic Recording Method of Accounting) system. This revolutionary system digitized checking for the Bank of America by creating a computer-readable font. A special scanner read account number preprinted on checks in magnetic ink. The system was developed at the Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park, California.

1973 – IBM Antitrust Lawsuit

IBM had a suit filed in January of 1972 by Telex. They accused IBM of monopolizing the “plug compatible” equipment market. This included tape and disk drives, along with other add-on memories. Judge Sherman Christensen hands down his 222 page verdict. He found that both Telex and IBM were guilty for the allegations waged against each other. Telex is awarded $350 million and IBM will be restrained in its ability to market its computer and software bundles. IBM, in turn, is awarded $22 million. This suit began a witch hunt and other suit against IBM came up.

2000 – Microsoft released Windows ME. The ME stood for Millenium Editionbut deserving or not, would eventually become code for a bad or unnecessary OS update.

2001 – The Nintendo GameCube went on sale in Japan. It was the first Nintendo game console that did not use cartridges.

2015 – The Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory, LIGO, detected gravitational waves of two merging black holes. It was the first direct observation of gravitational waves.

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1983 – Osborne Computer Declares Bankruptcy

Osborne Computer declares bankruptcy, two years after producing the first portable computer, the 24-pound Osborne I. Designed by company founder Adam Osborne, the $1,795 machine included software worth about $1,795 machine included software worth about $1,500. The machine featured a 5-inch display, 64 kilobytes of memory, a modem, and two 5 ¼ -inch floppy disk drives.

In April 1981, Byte Magazine Editor-in-Chief Chris Morgan mentioned the Osborne I in an article on “Future Trends in Personal Computing.” He wrote: “I recently had an opportunity to see the Osborne I in action. I was impressed with it’s compactness: it will fit under an airplane seat. (Adam Osborne is currently seeking approval from the FAA to operate the unit on board a plane.) One quibble: the screen may be too small for some people’s taste.”

1985 – Nintendo released Super Mario Brothers in Japan. It became the bestselling video game for 20 years until it was surpassed by Wii Sports.

2000 – The public beta of Apple’s Mac OS X, code named Kodiak, was released. Users had to pay $29.95 for the beta.

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1958 – Successful Test of the First Integrated Circuit

Jack Kilby successfully tests the first integrated circuit at Texas Instruments to prove that resistors and capacitors could exist on the same piece of semiconductor material. His circuit consisted of a sliver of germanium with five components linked by wires. Along with Bob Noyce, he is considered the inventor of the integrated circuit (IC).

1962 – US President John. F. Kennedy delivered a speech at the stadium of Rice University, declaring “We choose to go to the moon.” Many consider the speech the beginning of the space race.

1985 – Steve Jobs Leaves Apple to Start NeXT

After an interesting power struggle with john sculley, Steve Jobs decides to throw in the towel and tenders his resignation at Apple. He announces at the Board meeting he and other low level employees will be starting a new company – NeXT. The next day, Jobs tells John Sculley that Bud Trible, Dan’lLewin, George Crow, Rich Page, and Susan Barnes will be leaving to join him. Jobs new company would end up becoming the foundation of Mac when it is bought by Apple in 1996 and Steve Jobs comes back to become CEO.

1994 – Mosaic Communication introduced its first software, the Mosaic NetScape network navigator and the Mosaic Netsite server line.

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