1876
Both Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray apply for the same patent for the telephone. This would cause the controversy of who was the true inventor.
1899
Voting machines were approved by US Congress for use in federal elections
1924
Computing Tabulating Recording Corporation (CTR) becomes IBMwith Thomas J. Watson as both CEO and chief operating officer. Visit the official IBM website.
1929
In what will come to be known as the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, seven rival gangsters are killed in the Chicago area by men working for Al Capone.
1933
The first automated speaking clock which can be accessed over the telephone goes into operation in the Paris, France.
1946
ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer), the world’s first digital electronic computer, is unveiled by its designers, J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly, at the at the Moore School of the University of Pennsylvania. The result of a $400,000 contract from the U.S. Army granted in April of 1943, the computer weighs thirty tons, occupies three thousand cubic feet of space, and performs five thousand additions a second using 17,468 vacuum tubes operating at a speed of one hundred thousand pulses per second each. The computer is programmable by means of plugging and unplugging hundreds of wires patterns that make it the first true stored-program computer. Read more about ENIAC at the ENIAC Museum Online.
1961
Lawrencium – a radioactive synthetic chemical element – is first discovered. It is atomic number 103 on the table with a symbol of Lr
1978
The first micro on a chip is patented by Texas Instruments. Visit the official Texas Instruments website.
1983
George Mike Stickel, age twenty-nine, and Debbie Fuhrman, age twenty-three, exchange wedding vows on a computer terminal in Grand Praire, Texas using Compuserve’s CB simulator, the first internet chat service. Sixty-six wedding guests from across the country attend the online event, including the bride’s parents in Phoenix, Arizona and sister, who was online at a Radio Shack store in Sacramento, California. Reverend Kim Payton, a Universalist minister, stands at one terminal, while Debbie and Mike stand across from him at their own terminal. Upon receiving the question, Do you, Debbie, take Mike to be your lawful husband?, Debbie types in I will and the screen flashes (((((((KISS))))))). The screen then erupts in a shower of apostrophes to represent rice, and the bride’s mother types in Sniff. The event is the world’s first virtual wedding.
1984
Lotus Development introduces the Symphony software suite, which is intended to become the succor of Lotus 1-2-3. The suite features word processing and communication functions to the Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet program. Price: US$695
1989
The first of twenty-four satellites in the Global Positioning System (GPS) is placed into orbit. Visit the official GPS website.
The world’s first satellite-based telephone service, Skyphone, becomes the first telephone service available on an airline during a fourteen hour British Airways flight from London, England to New York City. Calls costs begin at US$9.50.
1994
The Labyrinth VRML web browser is released by Mark Pesce. Labyrinth provides access to a virtual reality of three-dimensional objects, which could be used for hypertext connections with other portions of the Web.
1995
US District Court Judge Stanley Sporkin rejects the consent decree settlement negotiated between the Department of Justice and Microsoft, regarding Microsoft’s alleged unfair trade practices. Sporkin claims that the anti-collusion stipulations are too easy on Microsoft and not in the public interest.
1996
Error 23 BBS, and the apartment of Brendon Nash in Richfield, Minnesota is raided by the local police in the course of an investigation into the robbery of a US-West van by four teenagers. According to the search warrant, the officers are looking for software which may have been uploaded to the BBS by one of the suspects in the US West robbery. All of Nash’s electronics are seized, including his stereo system, and the equipment won’t be returned for longer than two years, effectively closing Error 23.
Microsoft releases the Windows 95 Service Pack 1 (SP1) operating system update.
2001
Dutch Police announce that they have arrested the twenty year old creator of the Anna Kournikova virus, Jan de Wit. The virus, which was released on February 12, 2001, was transmitted via emails that claimed to include a picture of tennis player Anna Kournikova. De Wit will later be sentences to 150 hours of community service.
2003
Dolly, the first successfully cloned mammal, is put down due to a progressive lung disease. Dolly’s relatively early death, raises a great deal of controversy regarding the science of cloning.
Nintendo releases the Game Boy Advance SP handheld video game system in Japan. Internally, it is the same as the Game Boy Advance with the additions of a rechargeable battery and a flip-up 2.9 inch color LCD screen with built-in front lighting. The rechargeable lithium-ion battery can power the system for about ten hours with the light on, or about eighteen hours with the light off. Price: ¥12,500
2005
Intel releases the 3000MHz Xeon 3.0 processor, 3200MHz Xeon 3.2 processor, 3400MHz Xeon 3.4 processor, and 3600MHz Xeon 3.6 processor, featuring a 2,048KB Level-2 Cache, an 800MHz Front Side Bus. Visit the official Intel website.
YouTube is established by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim, all of whom were early employees of PayPal. On October 9, 2006, it Google will announce the acquisition of YouTube for US$1.65 billion in stock. The first video – Me at the zoo. [1]
2006
The Camino Project releases version 1.0 of the Camino web browser for the Mac OS X. It is the first browser in the Mozilla family to be offered as a universal binary. Visit the official Camino website.
2007
Solectron CEO Michael Cannon joins Dell to lead its worldwide manufacturing operations.
2009
Picsel Technologies sues Apple over patent infringement for technologies on zoom and pan on the iPhone.
The Facebook Fugitive George Appleton, was found hanged in Manchester UK.
2011
IBM’s Watson won $77,147 to Ken Jennings $24,000 and Brad Rutter’s $21,600
2013
ComScore notes that even though more people are searching, total searches declined 3 percent in 2012.
2014
Comcast buys Time Warner cable for $45.2 billion. Comcast would acquire 11 million subscribers in the deal. Although they underbid Charter, Comcast will have to sell some assets to them before getting approval of the FCC.