historical events

Simpsons

/

December 17, 1989: First Simpsons Episode

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 0 Comments

Play

Subscribe! Spotify | RSS | More

Simpsons
Simpsons

1989 – The first full episode of the Simpsons airs on FOX TV network. 21 years and 1 movie later, the show still continues on strong. The cast stayed pretty much the same since 89. The Simpsons started on FOX as an animated short on the Tracy Ullman Show. It was on that show for 3 seasons when it was moved to their own prime time spot. The Simpsons is one of the longest running sitcoms and even has their own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Subscribe to the Day in Tech History

Subscribe to Day In Tech History:

RSS Feed - iTunes - Android - Spotify - iHeartRadio

Facebook - 

- RSS Bandwidth by Cachefly Get a 14 Day Trial

- Join me on Patreon and support Day in Tech History

  • PureBasic v.2.0 is released
  • Sam Sethi puts Blognation up for auction
  • Yahoo shuts down Jumpcut
AltaVista-2[1]

/

December 15, 1983: AltaVista Launches

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 0 Comments

Play

Subscribe! Spotify | RSS | More

AltaVista
AltaVista

1995 – At the turn of the Internet age, researchers at Digital Equipment Corporation, led by Paul Flaherty, Louis Monier and Michael Burrows, created a web crawler and indexer algorithm. The web program was launched on December 15th and called “AltaVista”. The name was chosen because of the surrounds of their company in Palo Alto, CA.

The original name was altavista.digital.com and used a multi-threaded crawler (Scooter). The back-end was running on advanced hardware, therefore it could gather information faster than any other web crawling software out there.

AltaVista was one of the top search engines out there until Google overtook them all. Ultimately, in 2003 AltaVista was purchased by Yahoo! who continued to run it until 2013 when it was shut down.

1984 Apple Superbowl Commercial
1984 Apple Superbowl Commercial

1983 – There is some debate whether this happened on Dec. 15h or 31st. If you were a citizen of Twin Falls, Idaho and up at 1 AM watching<a href="http://www.KMVT.com/”> KMVT channel 11, then you got a treat. You saw an ad that changed the Superbowl. You saw an ad that changed a computer company.That’s right. You were the first to see the famous 1984 Superbowl Advertisement for Apple Macintosh. The Chiat/Day advertising company pre-ran ads to make sure they would be acceptable for a big release. Therefore, 1 AM on Thursday, December 15th – chances of people catching the ad are slim.

Of course, the ad went on to be one of the most influential ads of the 20th century and turned Superbowl commercials into a hot commodity. Interesting note: Apple didn’t put a commercial in the 2012 Superbowl.

Subscribe to the Day in Tech History

Subscribe to Day In Tech History:

RSS Feed - iTunes - Android - Spotify - iHeartRadio

Facebook - 

- RSS Bandwidth by Cachefly Get a 14 Day Trial

- Join me on Patreon and support Day in Tech History

  • ISO C90 is released
  • Fortran 95 is released
  • Twitter rival <a class="zem_slink" title="Pownce” href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pownce” rel=”wikipedia”>Pownce closes down after sale to Six Apart
Apple Superbowl ad 1984
Apple Superbowl ad 1984
W3C

/

December 14, 1994: W3C Held First Meeting

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 0 Comments

Play

Subscribe! Spotify | RSS | More

W3C
W3C

1994 – The World-Wide Web Consortium (W3C) held its first meeting at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Albert Vezza and <a class="zem_slink" title="Tim Berners-Lee” href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee” rel=”wikipedia”>Tim Berners-Lee founded the group to development and maintain international standards for the World Wide Web. Since then, the W3C has overseen the validation efforts in HTML and other formats.

Subscribe to the Day in Tech History

Subscribe to Day In Tech History:

RSS Feed - iTunes - Android - Spotify - iHeartRadio

Facebook - 

- RSS Bandwidth by Cachefly Get a 14 Day Trial

- Join me on Patreon and support Day in Tech History

  • Delta rolls out WiFi on flights
  • Microsoft releases Windows NT 4.0 SP2
  • Edward R. Murrow features the Whirlwind computer on See It Now
Apple

/

December 12: Apple Initial Public Offering

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 0 Comments

Play

Subscribe! Spotify | RSS | More

Apple

1980 – Apple Computer goes up for their Initial Public Offering and makes a statement in the market. Using the symbol “<a class="zem_slink" title="NASDAQ: AAPL” href=”http://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ:AAPL” rel=”googlefinance”>AAPL“, Apple shares started at $22 – but sell out within minutes. By the end of the day, shares rose to $29. The market value became 1.8 Billion, which, in turn, made employees and investors pretty rich – Steve Jobs reports $217 Million, being the largest shareholder. It beat out Ford Motor when it went IPOV (IPO Viral).

Subscribe to the Day in Tech History

Subscribe to Day In Tech History:

RSS Feed - iTunes - Android - Spotify - iHeartRadio

Facebook - 

- RSS Bandwidth by Cachefly Get a 14 Day Trial

- Join me on Patreon and support Day in Tech History

  • OSCAR I goes into orbit
  • Christopher Cockerell patents the Hovercraft
  • <a class="zem_slink" title="FidoNet” href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FidoNet” rel=”wikipedia”>FidoNet #1 Hard drive failure
  • Gawker.com is hacked and full email, password information was up on the Pirate Bay
Concorde Jet

/

December 11, 1967: The Concorde Supersonic Airliner

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 0 Comments

Play

Subscribe! Spotify | RSS | More

Concorde Jet
Concorde Jet

1967 – The Concorde was a British and French venture. It wa the first supersonic airliner. The prototype (Concorde 001) was rolled out to 1100 present. British technology minister Anthony Wedgwood Benn coined it Concorde on that day. The last “e” would stand for excellence. The first flight would not happen until March 1969.

Subscribe to the Day in Tech History

Subscribe to Day In Tech History:

RSS Feed - iTunes - Android - Spotify - iHeartRadio

Facebook - 

- RSS Bandwidth by Cachefly Get a 14 Day Trial

- Join me on Patreon and support Day in Tech History

Doom Unofficially Released

/

December 10, 1993: DOOM Released Unofficially

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 0 Comments

Play

Subscribe! Spotify | RSS | More

Doom Unofficially Released
Doom Unofficially Released

1993 – 20 years ago, a Shareware copy was uploaded through a server at the University of Wisconsin (and although I was going to school there at the time, it wasn’t me – HONEST). The end result was the beginning of the first-person shooter. For those who do not want to read the Doom Bible, the story is about a Marine who assaults a senior officer, therefore was incarcerated on Mars at the Union Aerospace Corporation. His job was to overlook the teleportation device.However, the device goes haywire and a whole bunch of creatures come out of the portal. The player is told to secure until help arrives. Unfortunately, that means heading through the establishment and defending from the monsters that attack.

Subscribe to the Day in Tech History

Subscribe to Day In Tech History:

RSS Feed - iTunes - Android - Spotify - iHeartRadio

Facebook - 

- RSS Bandwidth by Cachefly Get a 14 Day Trial

- Join me on Patreon and support Day in Tech History

  • XBOX 360 hits Japan
  • Yahoo lays off 1,500 with a controversial severance package
  • IBM 7320 drum
Microsoft Crew

/

December 7, 1978: Microsoft Staff Picture

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 0 Comments

Play

Subscribe! Spotify | RSS | More

Microsoft Crew
Microsoft Crew

1978 – It is one of the most infamous pictures in tech today. This is the Microsoft crew. Can you guess which one is Bill Gates?

The picture was updated in 2008 when the group (except Bob Wallace, who passed away in 2002) got back together for Bill Gates last few days at Microsoft (below).

The staff picture includes: Bill Gates, Andrea Lewis, Marla Wood, Paul Allen (2nd row) Bob O’Rear, Bob Greenberg (who helped launch Cabbage Patch Kids), Marc McDonald, Gordon Letwin, (3rd row) Steve Wood, Bob Wallace (passed away in 2002) and Jim Lane.

Subscribe to the Day in Tech History

Subscribe to Day In Tech History:

RSS Feed - iTunes - Android - Spotify - iHeartRadio

Facebook - 

- RSS Bandwidth by Cachefly Get a 14 Day Trial

- Join me on Patreon and support Day in Tech History

Microsoft Re-take in 2008
Encyclopaedia Britannica

/

December 6th, 1768: Encyclopedia Britannica Published

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 0 Comments

Play

Subscribe! Spotify | RSS | More

Encyclopaedia Britannica
Encyclopaedia Britannica

1768 – Encyclopedia Britannica began publishing the first print – otherwise known as “part I”. It was the brain child of  Colin Macfarquhar, and Andrew Bell, and was a conservative reaction to the French Encyclopédie of Denis Diderot. The first volume would be completed Edinburgh, Scotland by 1771. The 3rd edition would become popular and also expand for the first time. Since then, the Britannica would be digitized and put on CD, then DVD format. Today’s current version has 400 editors and 1,000 contributors. The Encyclopedia also saw several pirate copies during it’s 242 year run.The Encyclopedia would move to the US in 1901. Today, Britannica is produced as a digital version.

Subscribe to the Day in Tech History

Subscribe to Day In Tech History:

RSS Feed - iTunes - Android - Spotify - iHeartRadio

Facebook - 

- RSS Bandwidth by Cachefly Get a 14 Day Trial

- Join me on Patreon and support Day in Tech History

  • IBM 2420
  • Playstation sells 300,000
  • Apple Shares fall
  • Opera v.5 is released
  • .XXX goes online
1 2 3 4›»