1951
El Al Israel Airlines operated the first regularly scheduled transatlantic flights begin between John F Kennedy International Airport in New York City and Heathrow Airport in London.
1960
Theodore Maiman operates the first optical laser, at Hughes Research Laboratories in Malibu, California.
The leaders of the most powerful nations on earth came to verbal blows in Paris over the U2 Spy Plane which flew over the Soviet Union. President Nikita Khrushchev and US President Dwight D. Eisenhower are at odds over the issue – The U-2 came to public attention when CIA pilot Francis Gary Powers was shot down over Soviet territory on 1 May 1960.
1965
The Campbell Soup Company introduces SpaghettiOs under its Franco-American brand.
1984
Pacific Telephone determines that one of Thomas G. Tcimpidis message bases contains a stolen Calling Card number. Los Angeles Police then raid his home. Thomas was the Sysop of the MOG-UR BBS, has personal computer and data storage seized.
1992
Endeavour completed it’s 1st space shuttle journey
1997
American Mobile Satellite and WorldSpace officially change the name of American Mobile Radio to XM Satellite Radio.
2000
In Canada, Corel announces that the proposed merger with Inprise has been cancelled.
Internet2 backbone network deploys Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6). The main improvement IPv6 provides is the increase in the number of addresses available for networked devices. IPv4, the last protocol, supports 232 (about 4.3 billion) addresses, which is inadequate for giving even one address to every living person, let alone their portable devices. IPv6, however, supports approximately 5×1028 addresses for each of the roughly 6.5 billion people alive today. With such a large address space available, IPv6 nodes can have as many universally scoped addresses as they need, and network address translation is not required.
Microsoft officially releases Windows 2000 Service Pack 2. The update fixes over five hundred software bugs.
2001
CyberRebate.com, Inc., renown for offering 100% rebates on significantly overpriced consumer products, issues a statement that they have filed for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11 in the Eastern District of New York. The company reportedly has US$59 million less than what they need to pay all of their outstanding rebates. In some cases, customers expect in excess of US$115,000 in rebates for purchases that promised 100% of their original purchase price returned. Martinb McMillan of Galax, Virginia would purchase items from CyberRebate.com expecting to sell them on eBay (www.ebay.com) and enjoy a significant profit once the rebates for the purchase price was settled. An unidentified 52-year-old woman purchased almost US$80,000 in toys from CyberRebates.com and gave them away to neighborhood children before discovering she may not ever receive the rebates for which she applied.
2003
The first film screened digitally in cinemas from a DVD is The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys, shown in four Norwegian cinemas.
A total lunar eclipse is visible in Europe, the Americas, and most of Africa between 01:46 to 05:34 GMT.
2005
In a lawsuit brought against Apple by computer retailer Tiger Direct regarding its use of the name “Tiger”, a federal court in the Southern District of Florida ruled that Apple’s use of the name “Tiger” does not infringe upon Tiger Direct’s trademark.
2006
Apple announces the 13-inch MacBook available in 2.0 GHz and 2.16 GHz, discontinuing the PowerBook G4.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission accused Phantom Entertainment founder and former CEO Timothy Roberts of running a pump and dump scheme in promoting The Phantom console in 2004. In 2004, Roberts paid a promoter to send thousands of junk faxes falsely claiming that Infinium Labs planned to launch the ‘Phantom’ system in January 2005. The news drove Infinium Labs’ stock up. Roberts paid the promoter in $200,000 of company money and 4 million shares of restricted stock, without registering the transfer with the SEC
Toshiba released its first PC with a HD DVD-ROM drive, the Toshiba Qosmio 35. There are also a number of laptops and desktops from Hewlett Packard HP, Acer, Samsung, LG Electronics (LGE), Fujitsu and others equipped with HD DVD drives. All desktop systems so far use the NEC HR-1100A HD DVD-ROM, which is for OEM usage only.
Version 2.4 of the Damn Small Linux operating system is released.
2007
Amazon.com announces that it will launch a digital music store later in the year with millions of songs available completely free of Digital rights management restrictions that would limits how consumers can use the music. In September 25, the company will launch Amazon MP3. Visit the official Amazon website.
In the case of Perfect 10, Inc. v. Google Inc., the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals lifts a preliminary injunction prohibiting Google from displaying thumbnail photos from sexually explicit websites after concluding that Perfect 10, the pornographic website that originally filed for the injunction, would be unlikely to overcome Google’s fair use defense. In 2004, Perfect 10 sued, alleging copyright infringement, and in 2005, the company filed a similar claim against Amazon.com Inc. and its A9.com subsidiary, claiming its links to Google search results also constituted a violation of its copyright. A court granted a preliminary injunction in 2006, which was stayed pending legal review. US 9th Circuit Court Judge Ikuta found that “the significantly transformative nature of Google’s search engine, particularly in light of its public benefit, outweighs Google’s superseding and commercial uses of the thumbnails in this case.” However, Ikuta also added that “Google could be held contributorily liable if it had knowledge that infringing Perfect 10 images were available using its search engine, could take simple measures to prevent further damage to Perfect 10’s copyrighted works, and failed to take such steps.” The landmark ruling will have widespread implications for internet firms particularly search engines.
2008
Samsung shows off a prototype laptop using the OLED technology.
Sugar Labs announces they will make a version of their Sugar software for the EeePC.
2011
Comedian Adam Carolla stole the Guinness World Record of the most downloaded podcast. It was formerly held by Ricky Gervais. During March 2009 to May 2011, the show had 59,574,843 unique downloads. The announcement happened on May 18, 2011 during the Jimmy Kimmel show.
2013
A new world record has been achieved in wireless data transfer, with 40 Gbit/s transferred at 240 GHz over a distance of one kilometer
Bill Gates reclaims his title as world’s richest person with $72.7 billion. Gates lost the role in 2007