In 1975 – Xerox announced its withdrawal from computer mainframe manufacturing. The company did indicate it would continue activities in other computer-related businesses like computer disk drives, serial printers, and apparently giving away secrets to companies like Apple and Microsoft.

In 2002 – WorldCom filed for the largest Chapter 11 bankruptcy in U.S. history. It was the number two long-distance phone company, at a time when that still meant something. It would end up changing its name back to MCI, and its remains exists as Verizon’s business division.

In 2011 – The Space Shuttle Atlantis landed at Kennedy’s Shuttle Landing Facility Runway 15, ending the US space shuttle missions.

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

In 1960 – In a first for missiles, a Polaris A1 test vehicle was successfully launched from the USS George Washington submarine off the coast of Cape Canaveral, Florida.

In 1969 – In a first for humans, Neil Armstrong and Edwin A. “Buzz” Aldrin Jr. Successfully landed the Lunar Module “Eagle” on the surface of the Moon as part of the Apollo 11 mission and became the first humans to ever set foot on earth’s satellite.

In 1976 – In a first for robots, the Viking 1 lander successfully set down on on Mars in the Chryse Planitia and performed its mission.

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

In 1961 – Trans World Airlines began offering regular in-flight movies on scheduled flights. The first film shown, only in the first class cabin, mind you, was “By Love Possessed,” starring Lana Turner and Efrem Zimbalist Jr.

In 1983 – On July 19, 1983, Michael W. Vannier and his co-workers J. Marsh and J. Warren published the first three-dimensional reconstruction of single computed tomography (CT) slices of the human head.

In 2004 – Apple announced the fourth-generation iPod with 12-hour battery life and the ability to shuffle songs. HP announced they would sell an HP branded version of this model fo the iPod.

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

In 1968 – Robert Noyce, Andy Grove and Gordon Moore incorporated Moore and Noyce electronics, swiftly renamed at Noyce’s daughter’s suggestion to Integrated Electronics Corporation, or Intel for short.

In 1992 – Silvano de Gennaro, an IT developer at CERN took a picture of the singing group ‘Les Horribles Cernettes’ who sang mostly about physics. Tim Berners-Lee would later use that picture as a test, making it the first photo uploaded to the World Wide Web.

In 2001 – Apple announced Mac OS X 10.1 Puma, the first update to OS X.

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

In 1899 – Nippon Electric Company Ltd. (NEC) was founded by Iwadare Kunihiko, an expert in telegraphic systems who worked under Thomas Edison. Western Electric provided funding, making it the first Japanese joint-venture with a foreign company.

In 1997 – DNS was widely disrupted making email routing and web page delivery spotty throughout the day. An Ingres database failure resulted in corrupt .COM and .NET zone files. A system administrator mistakenly released the zone file without regenerating the file and verifying its integrity.

In 2002 – Apple announced PC versions of the iPod with MusicMatch software instead of iTunes. The company also announced a 20 GB version of the music player and touch-sensitive scroll wheel and dropped the prices.

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

In 1945 – The United States detonated a plutonium-based test nuclear weapon at the Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range in New Mexico. The Trinity test ushered in the atomic age.

In 1951 – VisiCalc creator Dan Bricklin was born in Philadelphia.

In 1969 – Neil A. Armstrong, Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr., and Michael Collins, blasted off from Cape Kennedy on Apollo 11, the first manned mission to the surface of the moon.

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

1928 – The Polish Cipher Bureau picked up enciphered radio signals from the German Reicswehr for the first time. The messages were encoded with Germany’s ENIGMA machine. Cracking the EMIGMA during World War II brought together some of the finest minds in computer science at Bletchley Park in England.

In 1983 – Nintendo released the Family Computer or Famicom, along with Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr. and Popeye cartridges. It would later be released in the US under as the Nintendo Entertainment System, or NES.

In 2003 – AOL Time Warner disbanded the Netscape browser development team. In conjunction, Mozilla created the Mozilla Foundation giving the project its first independent legal existence.

In 2006 – After a few months being used internally at Odeo, the Twttr service launched for public use. They later added some vowels and spun Twitter out as its own company.

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

In 1867 – Alfred Nobel demonstrated dynamite for the first time at Merstham Quarryl, Surrey.

In 1918 – Computer pioneer and MIT professor Jay Forrester was born on a cattle ranch in Climax, Nebraska. With Robert Everett, Forrester led one of the most important early computer projects, the Whirlwind, and developed and founded the field of system dynamics.

In 1965 – The Mariner 4 did a flyby of Mars, taking 21 full pictures, the first close-up photos of another planet returned from space.

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

In 1919 – The British airship R34 finished the first airship roundtrip journey across the Atlantic from Scotland to Mineola, Long Island and back to Norfolk, England after 182 hours of flight.

In 1973 – Alexander Butterfield revealed the existence of the Nixon tapes to the US Senate committee investigating the Watergate break-in. Always make back-ups, unless you want to remain President.

In 1977 – Lightning struck a Consolidated Edison substation on the Hudson River, tripping two circuit breakers and setting off a chain of events that resulted in a massive power failure. The entire city of New York was blacked out.

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

In 1854 – George Eastman was born to Maria Kilbourn and George Washington Eastman in Waterville, New York. He went on to found the Eastman Kodak Company and invented the roll of film.

In 1949 – At an IBM sales meeting, Thomas J. Watson Jr. predicted that within 10 years, electronics would replace moving parts in machines. His vision launched IBM into dominating the computer industry.

In 2004 – Apple announced the iTunes Music Store sold its 100,000,000th downloaded song. “Somersault (Dangermouse remix)” by Zero 7 was purchased by Kevin Britten of Hays, Kansas.

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