Day in Tech History

Daily rundown of tech history


By Jeffrey Powers

https://dayintechhistory.com/

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December 30, 2008: Does Facebook Allow Breastfeeding?

December 30, 2024

2008 Facebook made an initiative to remove any picture showing breastfeeding. In return, 11,000 women posted pictures in protest. On June 15, 2014, after the #FreeTheNipple campaign brought success,

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December 29, 2004: Commodore Acquired

December 29, 2024

2004 Once Commodore dropped from the market in the 80s, it pretty much started bouncing around the world from company to company. Ultimately it landed in the lap of KMOS a Deleware company. Howe

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December 28, 1995: 200 Sites Blocked by Compuserve

December 28, 2024

1995 Compuserve blocks access to over 200 sites that have explicit content. They do it to avoid issue with the German Government. The sites would be blocked until Feb 13, 1996 when all but 5 sites w

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December 27, 2001: HotJobs Acquired by Yahoo

December 27, 2024

2001 Yahoo announces that they will acquire 98.6 percent of the outstanding stock to

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December 26, 2007: Apple Hits $200 a share

December 26, 2024

2007 With iTunes just signing a deal with FOX and their content for iTunes, stocks pushed upward to $200 a share. It was the first time Apple hit that barrier, and promptly dropped after. The compan

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December 25, 1998: Official Y2K Compliance

December 25, 2024

1998 during the last couple years of the 20th century, the race was on to fix an oversight in multiple computer systems. The problem was dubbed Y2K or the Millennium bug. Bottom line was that all

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December 24: Watch out for Werewolves

December 24, 2024

An interesting fact: Russian folklore believed that December 24th was the day people could be turned into Werewolves. Any child that is born on December 24th would beconsidereda werewolf. There are

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December 23, 2008: Santa Claus via Google Earth

December 23, 2024

2008 Santa Claus is spotted on Google Earth. Of course the story of St. Nicholas is an interesting one that doesnt really involve religion. But now we know where he resides, thanks to Google! Of co

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December 22, 1845: the First Euphonium

December 22, 2024

1845 Today, were travelling to the Geek side of things. Its not everyday that I get to talk about my other passion Music. The Euphonium often mistaken for a Tuba was created. It was also coi

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December 21, 2000: Child Internet Protection Act into Law

December 21, 2024

2000 President Bill Clinton signs the Child Internet Protection Act into law. The law is implemented to set rules for the web to expose them to pornography and sexual content. In 2003 the law will b

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December 20, 1996: Apple Buys NeXT

December 20, 2024

1996 Steve Jobs started Apple. When he left Apple, he started NeXT. When Apple started to fall, Steve Jobs came back. Of course, having 2 computer companies is not a good idea So why not buy it ou

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December 19, 1974: Do it Yourself Altair Kit

December 19, 2024

1974 Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS) puts out the first ever Do it yourself Altair 8800. You would get it through Popular Mechanics Magazine, then assemble it yourself. This is

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December 18, 1926: Photon is Coined

December 18, 2024

1926 The term Photon is coined. Of course a photon is the basic unit of light and all other forms of electromagnetic radiation. Newton Lewis is the one who coins the term. HTML 4.0 is published

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December 17, 1989: First Simpsons Episode

December 17, 2024

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 starte

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December 16, 1994: Large Hadron Collider Approved

December 16, 2024

1994 Although its only been in mainstream news for a couple years, the Large Hadron Collider has actually been around for many years now. On this day, for example,

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December 15, 1983: AltaVista Launches

December 15, 2024

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 progr

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December 14, 1994: W3C Held First Meeting

December 14, 2024

1994 The World-Wide Web Consortium (W3C) held its first meeting at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Albert Vezza and

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December 13, 1982: Atari 1200XL

December 13, 2024

1982 After a decent success of the Atari 400/800 line the company noticed the console was looking a little old. After all, the Atari 400 actually discolors upon UV light. The 400s non-tactile key

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December 12: Apple Initial Public Offering

December 12, 2024

1980 Apple Computer goes up for their Initial Public Offering and makes a statement in the market. Using the symbol

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December 11, 1967: The Concorde Supersonic Airliner

December 11, 2024

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 Ben

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December 10, 1993: DOOM Released Unofficially

December 10, 2024

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 wasnt me HONEST). The end result was the

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December 9, 2002: Jon Lech Johansen (DVD Jon) Trial

December 09, 2024

2002 The trial of Jon Lech Johansen, better known as DVD Jon, begins with Johansen pleading not guilty. DVD Jon has been a pioneer in Reverse engineering. O.K, so that is a fancy way of saying

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December 8, 2004: IBM sells PC Division to Lenovo

December 08, 2024

2004 It was an interesting day in the Tech community when we heard the news. IBM was getting out of the desktop and laptop markets and focus on server and infrastructure. They started by selling all

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December 7, 1978: Microsoft Staff Picture

December 07, 2024

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

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December 6th, 1768: Encyclopedia Britannica Published

December 06, 2024

1768 Encyclopedia Britannica began publishing the first print otherwise known as part I. It was the brain child of Colin Macfarquhar, andAndrew Bell, and was a conservative reaction to the Fre

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December 5, 1965: First Computer Science Degree: Richard Wexelblat

December 05, 2024

1965 Richard Wexelblat was the first candidate to complete his doctoral dissertation, hence giving him a degree in Computer Science. It was presented at the University of Pennsylvania Moore Scho

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December 4, 1985: Cray X-MP/48 Supercomputer

December 04, 2024

1985 The Cray X-mp/48 Supercomputer begins operation in San Diego Supercomputer Center in California. The $15 million dollar supercomputer could process 400 megaflops (200 per processor). It was a s

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December 3, 1981: Disbanding of IBM Data Processing Division

December 03, 2024

1981 For many years, whenever something came out, it was IBMs Data Processing Division releases Well, on Dec 3rd 1981, IBM decided and announced that the Data Processing Division was going to be

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December 2, 1991: Apple Quicktime

December 02, 2024

1991 What was first a Multimedia add-on for System 6, Quicktime has spent 21 years being Apples proprietary player. The original version contained graphics, animation and Video codecs What was re

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December 1, 2013: The Amazon Flying Drone Project

December 01, 2024

2013 Jeff Bezos is interviewed on the show 60 Minutes on CBS with Charlie Rose. During his interview he unveils a project Amazon has been working on Flying drone delivery. This secret R&D projec

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November 30, 1959: $2.9 Million IBM 7090 Mainframe

November 30, 2024

1959 Want to see a 2.9 million dollar computer? That was the IBM 7090 a transistorized mainframe computer that was designed for scientific research and tech applications. It replaced the 709 serie

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November 29, 1972: First Pong Machine

November 29, 2024

1972 Andy Cappas tavern in CA was the site for the first Pong game was wheeled into the establishment. The coin-operated game was put in by Atari co-founderNolan Bushnell and game designerAl Alco

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November 28, 1983: Tandy TRS-80 Model 2000

November 28, 2024

1983 To counter IBM, Tandy releases the Tandy TRS-80Model 2000 computer. It housed the 80186 processor and 128 KB of RAM. There were 2 720 KB floppy drives and the MSDOS Operating System. The pr

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November 27, 1998: Sega Dreamcast Launched in Japan

November 27, 2024

1998 Sega releases their next generation console the Dreamcast in Japan. It didnt get released in the US until Sept 9 1999, but it was one of the more successful console launches of its time.T

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November 26, 2001 Intel at TeraHertz

November 26, 2024

2001 One problem with technology is that you hit limitations, mostly due to materials used or how small machines can make parts like transistors. For instance, todays multi-core x86 processors will

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November 25, 2002: Roxio Purchased Napster

November 25, 2024

2002 While in Bankruptcy since the following September, Roxio along with the Private Media Group came in and took over the $2.43 million dollar company. They took all logos and names and rebrand

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November 24, 2008: Novell Owns UNIX, UNIXWare

November 24, 2024

2008 After a long court battle with the Santa Cruz Operations (SCO) group, a judge rules that Novell is the owner of UNIX and UNIXWare copyrights. In 2003 just after SCO changed their name from Ca

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November 23, 1889: First Commercial Jukebox

November 23, 2024

1889 Congratulations to the first commercial jukebox which was installed in San Francisco, CA. It was called the Nickel-in-the-Slot, and played wax cylinder records. Within 6 months it would earn

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November 22, 1994: Sega Saturn Released

November 22, 2024

1994 The Sega Saturn is released featuring 2 28.6 MHz processors running 32 bit. It had 2 video display processors, QSound surround and 2 MB of memory, with 1.5MB of video memory. It went for 44,800

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November 21, 2008: Justin.TV Online Suicide of Abraham Biggs

November 21, 2024

2008 Some watched in horror. Others watched thinking it was a joke. Still, Abraham Biggs was a troubled teen. He decided to end it all and do it in front of a live audience. He got on Justin.tv and

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November 20, 2013: AOL Tries to Shut Down WinAmp

November 20, 2024

2013 AOL shocked a lot of geeks when they announced WinAmp.com would be shutting down and the software would be no longer available come December 20th. The next day rumors surfaced that Microsoft w

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November 19, 1993: Don’t Post Bomb Instructions Online

November 19, 2024

1993 The Ionizer Otherwise known as Michael Elanky, recieved 28 months in prison for posting bomb-making instructions on his BBS. There have been other instances of this throughout history, but El

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November 18, 1985: Calvin and Hobbes

November 18, 2024

1894 The first Sunday Comics section is printed by the New York World. 1985 91 years later, Bill Watterson syndicates a comic about a boy and his stuffed Tiger. Calvin and Hobbes will bring laught

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November 17, 2008: Jerry Yang Steps down as Yahoo! CEO

November 17, 2024

2008 After battle upon battle between Microsoft, Google and shareholders (including Carl Icahn), Jerry Yang finally announced to all he was stepping down as CEO of Yahoo! The previous days, Steve Ba

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November 16, 1977: Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind Debuts

November 16, 2024

1977 Most of the time, we skip over movie releases, unless it has had a definite impact on the Tech and geek community. That is the case with this movie. Close Encounters of the Third Kind Directe

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November 15, 1971: Intel 4004 Microprocessor

November 15, 2024

1971 Intel announced the 4004 microprocessor in an ad in Electronic News Magazine. Intel called it a micro-programmable computer on a chip, this was the first single-chip processor. It was also conc

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November 14: Computer Dealer Exhibition – COMDEX

November 14, 2024

During the 80s and 90s, there was a little show called COMDEX. It stood for Computer Dealer Exhibition. For a while, there were 2 versions: The Spring COMDEX (Alternating for a while between Altanta

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November 13, 2006: Google Completes YouTube Acquisition

November 13, 2024

2006 In February 14,2005, 3 former Paypal employees started a website that let you upload and share your video. YouTube brought a new idea of putting your creations on the internet. However, their

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November 12, 2002: Gary McKinnon Indicted

November 12, 2024

2002 Gary McKinnon has been in the news ever since his arrest. Back in 2002, he hacked into networks run by NASA, the Pentagon, along with other military bases around the US. He claims he was on a h

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November 11, 2005: Sony suspended CD copy protection

November 11, 2024

2005 In an effort to curb piracy, record companies began putting copy protection on the CDs themselves. The electronic marking would cause CDs to error out if they tried to copy. Unfortunately th

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