Welcome to the seventh installment of Tech History Thursday! If you’re keeping up to date with tech news by reading Techaeris, you’re just as interested in the origins of our high-tech world as we are. This weekly snapshot will give you a look at what happened throughout history as it relates to tech. Keep reading for this week’s tech history rundown.
August 3
- 1977 – President of Radio Shack, Lewis Kornfeld, announces the TRS-80 Trash-80 Model I, the first ever desktop computer.
- 2005 – Mozilla Corporation is established to handle the revenue side of the Mozilla Foundation. Mozilla Corporation would go on to further develop the Mozilla Foundation’s projects, Firefox and Thunderbird.
August 4
- 1921 – The first-ever facsimile is transmitted by radio across the Atlantic Ocean, addressed to the Matin in Paris from C.V. Van Anda, the managing editor of The New York Times.
- 1922 – A one minute memorial sees the silencing of every telephone in remembrance for the passing of Alexander Graham Bell.
- 1987 – IBM introduces the PS/2 Model 25 for $1,350 USD. It is a combined system with smaller components, a monitor, and an Intel chipset.
- 2008 – Social music website Social.FM shuts down.
August 5
- 1858 – The Niagra lays down 1,016 miles of telegraph cable, completing the first Transatlantic cable.
- 1914 – The first electric traffic light is installed in Cleveland, OH by the American Traffic Signal Co.
- 1921 – The first radio broadcast of a baseball game occurs from Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field.
- 2002 – The Abilene Network deploys native Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6), which allows an increased number of IP addresses.
- 2008 – AMD announces the 790GX chipset for the high-end gamer.
- 2013 – Jeff Bezos acquires the Washington Post for $250 million USD.
August 6
- 1991 – Tim Berners-Lee begins discussion of the World Wide Web project on various newsgroups.
- 1995 – IBM helps fund Father Leonard Boyle in putting the Vatican’s library on the Internet.
- 1997 – Microsoft invests in Apple Computer, saving it from financial ruin. Microsoft buys 100,000 non-voting shares worth $150 million USD.
- 2001 – Russian hacker Dmitry Sklyarov is released from jail on $50,000 USD bail after being arrested by the FBI.
- 2004 – Microsoft releases Windows XP Service Pack 2.
- 2009 – Microsoft purchases Office.com.
August 7
- 1944 – ISB president Thomas J. Watson, Sr. presents the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator (ASCC) to Harvard University. It will become known as the Harvard Mark I.
- 1959 – Satellite Explorer 6 transmits the first photos of Earth from space.
- 2006 – The Power Mac G5 desktop computer is released by Apple.
August 8
- 1995 – The US DOJ decides not to launch an antitrust case against Microsoft.
- 2000 – Intel announces development of the Pentium 4.
- 2008 – Apple removes an app selling for $1,000 USD from the App Store.
- 2008 – The Olympics are live-streamed online through NBC for the first time.
August 9
- 1898 – The first Diesel engine patent is issued to Rudolf Diesel.
- 1991 – The first-ever email from space is sent from aboard Space Shuttle Atlantis during STS-43. The message reads: “Hello Earth! Greetings from the STS-43 Crew.”
- 1999 – The Athalon processor family is announced by AMD.
- 2013 – Encrypted email service Lavabit shuts down amidst requests from Federal agencies for information about Edward Snowden.
There you have it! Which of these events do you think has had the most impact on how technology has been shaped? Sound off in the comments below.
Have a favorite moment in tech history that you’d like to add to next week’s snapshot? Leave a comment or connect with us on Google+, Facebook, Twitter, or by email!
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Last Updated on November 27, 2018.
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