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Return of the Jedi
May 25, 1983 The third installment in the original Star Wars trilogy, Return of the Jedi, is released six years to the day after the first Star Wars movie. Return of the Jedi continued to raise the bar in special effects technology that its predecessors set. The film’s final space battle, for example, was of…
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First Night Baseball Game
May 24, 1935 The first night major league baseball game is played in Cincinnati. The hometown Reds defeated the visiting Philadelphia Phillies 2-1. Night baseball caught on around the league very quickly – except for the Chicago Cubs, who didn’t play a home night game until 1988. Why am I not surprised? The post First…
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The Old World Gets Connected
May 23, 1903 Paris, France and Rome, Italy are connected by telephone for first time. Feel free to congratulate me for finding this picture at any time. The post The Old World Gets Connected appeared first on This Day in Tech History. This Day in Tech History Tech History provided by This Day in Tech History.com
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Happy Birthday, Pac-Man!
Puck-Man was the original name for Pac-Man May 22, 1980 Namco’s upcoming game “Puck-Man” is location tested in a movie theater complex in Japan. After favorable initial testing, the game is slightly tweaked, with the most major change the renaming of the game to “Pac-Man”. Midway, Namco’s U.S. distributor, thought that vandals would alter the…
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The Empire Strikes Back
May 21, 1980 The sequel to the the smash success Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back is released on this day, almost exactly 3 years after the release of the original film. The pioneering use of special effects technology in the Star Wars Trilogy transformed the movie industry. The post The Empire Strikes Back appeared…
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First Female to Fly Solo Across Atlantic
May 20, 1932 Five years to the day after Charles Lindbergh took off on his historic first solo flight across the Atlantic, Amelia Earhart takes off from Newfoundland. While her original destination was France, weather and mechanical problems force her to land in Ireland nearly 15 hours after she took off. She become the first woman and second…
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Apple Cube Store Opens in NYC
May 19, 2006 Apple opens their second store in New York City, a 20,000 square-foot shop at the underground concourse of the General Motors building at 767 Fifth Avenue. Open 24-hours a day, the shop is visible at street level through a 32-foot glass cube. Designed by Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs at a cost of…
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Antitrust Suit Filed Against Microsoft
May 18, 1998 The United States Justice Department and the Attorneys Generals of twenty states plus the District of Columbia file an antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft. The case focuses on Microsoft’s integration of the Internet Explorer web browser into its Windows 98 operating system. The trial becomes one of the most famous events in tech…
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World Wide Web Launched
May 17, 1991 The first server “web server” in history is set up by Tim Berners-Lee on a NeXTcube at CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland. The launch of this first server is considered the public release of the World Wide Web. The post World Wide Web Launched appeared first on This…
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First Laser Created
May 16, 1960 Physicist Theodore Maiman creates the first laser light, using a synthetic-ruby crystal device. He was not the first to develop the theories behind lasers nor first to apply for patents, but he was the first to create an operating laser device. The light produced by this device was not a true beam…