In 1902 -Georges Méliès’ film Le voyage dans la lune (A Trip to the Moon) debuted in France. It is often considered the first real science fiction film.

In 1994 – The United States Library of Congress held the first of several meetings to plan the conversion of its materials to digital form and make them accessible by computer networks.

In 1996 – Apple released its Pippin game console in the US. The idea was to provide an inexpensive game-focused computer. Apple licensed third parties like Bandai to make Pippin consoles.

In 2008 – Google launched its Web browser called Google Chrome.

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In 1897 – Thomas Edison received a patent for the kinetographic camera, the forerunner of the motion picture film projector.

In 1994 – Stockholders approved the merger of Aldus Corp. and Adobe Systems Inc. It united the two driving forces behind desktop publishing software. Aldus Pagemaker became Adobe Pagemaker.

In 1997 – The developer release of Apple’s new OS, code name Grail1Z4 / Titan1U was released. It was known formally as Rhapsody and would evolve into OS X.

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In 1885 – Gottlieb Daimler received a patent for adding an internal combustion engine to a bicycle to make the first gasoline-driven motorcycle.

In 1907 – John Mauchly was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. He would grow up to pioneer the design and construction of ENIAC along with Presper Eckert as well as contribute to the creation of BINAC and UNIVAC.

In 1963 – A direct line of communication between the leaders of the USA and USSR, dubbed “The Hotline” began operation.

In 1969 – BBN delivered the first Interface Message Processor (IMP) to the Network Measurements Center at UCLA. It was built from a Honeywell DDP 516 computer with 12K of memory, and would be used in October to make the first Internet connection with Stanford. Graduate students Vinton Cerf, Steve Crocker, Bill Naylor, Jon Postel, and Mike Wingfield were charged with installation.

In 1982 – A copyright was issued to 16-year-old V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai for a computer program he called “EMAIL,” short for “electronic mail.” While Ayyadurai may not be considered the inventor of email he definitely deserves credit for establishing the name.

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In 1831 – Michael Faraday discovered electromagnetic induction, which is used in power generation and power transmission by generators, transformers, induction motors, electric motors, synchronous motors, and solenoids.

In 1965 – Astronaut L. Gordon Cooper, orbiting 100 miles above the Earth in Gemini 5 talked with aquanaut M. Scott Carpenter in Sealab II, 205 feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean. It happened to be Cooper’s wedding anniversary.

In 1990 – The British Computer Misuse Act went into effect. The Act resulted from a long debate in the 1980s over failed prosecutions of hackers.

In 1997 – Marc Randolph and Reed Hastings founded Kibble Inc. The service initially let you rent individual DVDs by mail without late fees. There was no subscription service and no streaming. And the service was later renamed Netflix.

In 2003 – Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis founded Skype, the Voice over Internet Provider that would go on to dominate the space.

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In 1845 – Scientific American began publication with the issue for this day. It would become the oldest continuously published magazine in the United States.

In 1991 – The crew of the Space Shuttle Atlantis sent an electronic mail message using AppleLink. The message read: “Hello Earth! Greetings from the STS-43 Crew. This is the first Applelink from space. Having a GREAT time, wish you were here!”

In 2009 – Apple released Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard featuring many minor improvements and integration with Microsoft Exchange.

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In 1962 – NASA launched the Mariner 2 unmanned space mission to Venus.

In 1989 – The first direct-to-home TV satellite launched from Cape Canaveral. Marco Polo I delivered the British Satellite Broadcasting service to homes in the UK.

In 2003 – Fairbanks, Alaska got the world’s biggest UPS backup. The city hooked up the world’s largest storage battery, built to provide an uninterrupted power supply of 40 megawatts.

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In 1938 – A New York radio station first used the Philips-Miller system of tape recording on a radio broadcast.

In 1984 – Miss Manners confronted her first computer issue. The columnist responded to a reader’s concern about typing personal correspondence on a personal computer.

In 1996 – Netscape Communications Corp. announced it had partnered with several other big companies to create a software company called Navio Corp. Navio was meant to create an operating system to compete with Windows.

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In 1609 – Galileo Galilei craftily beat a Dutch telescope maker to an appointment with the Doge of Venice. Galileo impressed the Doge and received a lifetime appointment and a doubled salary. Later that autumn, Galileo pointed his telescope to the Moon, and trouble began.

In 1981 – Voyager 2 made its closest approach to Saturn. Eight years later on the same day in 1989, Voyager 2 would make its closest approach to Neptune.

In 1991 – 21-year-old Finnish student Linus Torvalds wrote a newsgroup post about a free operating system he was working on. He said it was “just a hobby, won’t be big and professional like gnu.” His OS would eventually be called Linux.

In 2014 – Amazon announced it had acquired Twitch.TV the popular video game streaming site. Rumors had indicated Google was going to buy the company, but the deal fell through.

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In 1456 – According to a handwritten note by illustrator Heinrich Cremer, the final binding of the Gutenberg Bible took place.

In 1995 – Microsoft released Windows 95. During development it was referred to as Windows 4.0 or by the internal codename “Chicago.”

In 2001 – WebKit received its first commit of code from Apple. The Safari browser appeared two years later and WebKit was open sourced in 2005.

In 2011 – Steve jobs resigned as CEO of Apple, handing over the job to Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook.

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In 1932 – The BBC began public television broadcasts.

In 1955 – The first computer user group, SHARE was founded by users of IBM’s Model 704 computer. The first meeting was held in the basement conference room of the RAND Corporation.

In 2007 – The Storm botnet sent out a record 57 million virus-infected emails. It failed to take down the Internet.

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