In 1989 – A solar flare created a geomagnetic storm that caused three hard drives to fail in an otherwise fault-tolerant system at the Toronto Stock Exchange to fail. This prevented access to critical market data leading the exchange to be shut down for three hours.

In 1993 – Ian Murdock announced the Debian Linux distribution system. The name combined his then girlfriend Debra’s name with his own, Deb-Ian. And now you know how to properly pronounce it.

In 1995 – The first version Microsoft’s Web browser, Internet Explorer 1, debuted. It was based on Mosaic, which Microsoft had licensed from Spyglass Inc.

In 1877 – In a letter to T.B.A. David, president of the Central District and Printing Telegraph Company in Pittsburgh, Thomas Edison suggested using the word ‘hello’ to indicate a telephone connection was active. Alexander Graham Bell had reportedly preferred ‘Ahoy’ as the greeting.

In 1960 – A long-distance phone link was tested using the Echo 1 satellite. William Victor placed a call from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at Goldstone, California to William C. Jakes Jr. at the Bell Laboratories in Holmdel, New Jersey, bouncing off the satellite to make the connection.

In 1994 – Microsoft programmer Benjamin Slivka sent an email to his team suggesting they make a Web browser for Windows 95.

Like Tech History? Purchase Tom Merritt’s Chronology of Tech History at Merritt’s Books site.

In 1888 – Mr. George Gouraud introduced the Edison phonograph to London in a press conference, including the playing of a piano and cornet recording of Sullivan’s “The Lost Chord,” one of the first recordings of music ever made.

In 1894 – The first wireless transmission of information using Morse code was demonstrated by Oliver Lodge during a meeting of the British Association at Oxford. A message was transmitted about 50 meters from the old Clarendon Laboratory to the lecture theater of the University Museum.

In 1940 – John Atanasoff finished a paper describing the Atanasoff Berry Computer, or ABC, the computer he designed with Clifford Berry to solve simultaneous linear equations.

Like Tech History? Purchase Tom Merritt’s Chronology of Tech History at Merritt’s Books site.