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.

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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.

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In 1852 – The first time signals were transmitted by telegraph from the Royal Observatory in Greenwich.

In 1966 – Lunar Orbiter 1 took the first photograph of Earth from orbit around the Moon.

In 1993 – Nintendo agreed to use Silicon Graphics Inc. technology in a video game player it was developing.

In 2012 – Microsoft unveiled a new logo for the first time in 25 years, opting for simple squares of color and block type with an overlapping ‘f’ and ‘t’.

In 2013 – Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced he would retire within the next 12 months.

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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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In 1888 – William Seward Burroughs received four patents, including one for a ‘Calculating Machine’. It would lead to the creation of the Burroughs Adding Machine Company.

In 1973 – Sergey Brin was born in Moscow. His family emigrated to the US in 1979. He would grow up to co-develop a search engine with Larry Page and co-found Google.

In 1993 – NASA lost contact with the Mars Observer three days before it was supposed to enter orbit. As it began to pressurize fuel tanks, the spacecraft’s transmitters went silent and it was never heard from again.

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In 1920 – The first commercial radio station, 8MK, began operating in Michigan. Now, WWJ, it is owned by CBS.

In 1930 – W2XCR began broadcasting at 2.1-2.2 mHz from Jersey City, New Jersey, with the first demonstration of telecasts meant for the home. A half-hour program, hosted by the cartoonist Harry Hirschfeld, was viewed on screens placed in a store in the Hotel Ansonia, the Hearst building, and a home at 98 Riverside Drive.

In 1970 – John Carmack was born in Shawnee Mission, Kansas. He would grow up to co-found id software and bring the world Doom, Wolfenstein and Quake.

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In 1839 – At a crowded meeting of the Paris Academy of Sciences, Louis Daguerre demonstrated the process of making photos called daguerreotypes.

In 1906 – Philo Farnsworth was born on Indian Creek in Beaver County, Utah. He would grow up to inspire the beloved professor character on Futurama. He also gets credit for inventing the first completely electronic television.

In 1934 – Gordon Bell was born in Kirksville, Missouri. He would grow up to help build PDP computers and oversee the development of DEC’s VAX series.

In 2003 – Dave Winer posted an experiment with RSS enclosures. It allowed subscribers with the right aggregator to have an MP3 of an interview Chris Lydon did delivered with no click-wait. This would lead to Christopher Lydon becoming the first podcaster before it was called podcasting.

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In 1937 – The first Frequency Modulation or FM radio permit was granted to W1XOJ, in Paxton, Massachusetts. It went on the air with scheduled programs in May 1939 and operated with the highest output power (50 kilowatts) granted prior to World War II.

In 1947 – Eight years after William Hewlett and David Packard founded it, Hewlett-Packard was officially incorporated.

In 2005 – The largest and most widespread power outage in history happened on the Indonesian island of Java, affecting almost 100 million people.

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In 1944 – Larry Ellison was born in the Bronx in New York City. 9 months later, after contracting pneumonia, he was taken to Chicago to be raised by his Aunt and Uncle. He would grow up to drop out of college, move to Berkeley and co-found Software Development Labs, one of the most successful corporations in history. Today it’s known as Oracle.

In 1982 – Royal Philips Electronics manufactured the world’s first Compact Disc (not counting test pressings) at a Polygram factory in Langenhagen, just outside of Hanover, Germany. The CD was “The Visitors” by Abba.

In 2000 – Nielsen/NetRatings announced that according to their data, more than half (52%) of United States households had Internet access for the first time. This confirmed Media Metrix’s report from April which estimated that 51% of US households now had Internet access.

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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. 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 1994 – The IBM Simon went on sale, combining a mobile phone with computer functions. It weighed 500 grams, could run apps and be linked to a fax machine, selling for $899. The word smartphone hadn’t even been coined yet.

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 2011 – Xiaomi launched their first phone, the M1or ‘Xiaomi Phone’ with a 1.5 GHz dual core chip and 1 GB of RAM for ¥1,999.

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