This is something I have been wanting to start for a while since I’m a geek and also a history buff what better to do than comb through the catacombs of technology and find the best moments in technology, science, gaming, sci-fi and fantasy and everything else in or around the realm of geek.

January 16th

1909 - Ernest Shackleton‘s Nimrod Expedition find the approximate location of the South Magnetic Pole, reached by Edgeworth David, Douglas Mawson, and Alistair Mackay.

1969 – The Soviet spacecraft Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5 performed  the first ever manned spacecraft docking in orbit. They were also successful  in performing the fist ever crew transfer.

1986 – The first meeting of the Internet Engineering Task Force. This first meeting was made up of 21 U.S. Government funded researchers and was chaired by Mike Corrigan.

1995 – Star Trek: Voyager premieres with the double length episode “Caretaker” and starts a 7 season journey of Captain Janeway and crew to find their way back to earth from the Delta Quadrant.

2003 – NASA mission STS-107 launches with the Space Shuttle Columbia, unfortunately this mission ends in disaster 16 days later on February 1st, 2003 when due to a damaged wing the shuttle disintegrates on re-entry.

January 18th

1974 – The Six Million Dollar Man, starring Lee Majors as Colonel Steve Austin, premieres on ABC. The show would run for 5 seasons with a total of 99 episodes plus 6 made-for-TV movies.

2005 – Airbus unveils it’s double-deck, wide-body, four engine jet airliner this A380 in Toulouse, France. The 853 maximum seat, 238.6 foot long aircraft is the world’s largest passenger airliner.

January 19th

1983 – The Apple Lisa is released with a US$9,995 price tag. Specs include a Motorola 68000 processor running at 5Mhz, 1 megabyte of RAM and a 720 x 364 resolution 12-inch monitor. It would sell 100,000 units before it was discontinued 2 years later.

1986 – The first computer virus for MS-DOS, ©Brain, was unleashed on the world. The virus created by the Farooq Alvi Brothers in Lahore, Pakistan attacked the boot sector and contained the following text:

Welcome to the Dungeon
(c) 1986 Basit & Amjad (pvt) Ltd.
BRAIN COMPUTER SERVICES
730 NIZAB BLOCK ALLAMA IQBAL TOWN
LAHORE-PAKISTAN
PHONE :430791,443248,280530.
Beware of this VIRUS….
Contact us for vaccination………… $#@%$@!!

January 20th

1934 - Fujifilm, digital and film camera maker, is founded in Tokyo, Japan.

January 21st

1953 – Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen was born in Seattle, Washington. After Microsoft, Paul went on to found Vulcan Inc, invest in SpaceShipOne and purchase the Portland Trail Blazers, Seattle Seahawks and Seattle Sounders.

1960 – Little Joe 1B launches from the Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops, Virginia carrying a female Rhesus monkey named Miss Sam. The flight was as test of the Launch Escape System of the Mercury Spacecraft.

1981 – The DeLorean DMC-12 goes into production in Dunmurry, Northern Ireland. The DMC-12 coupled with a Flux Capacitor will later allow Marty McFly to travel back from 1985 to 1955.

2004 – The Mars Rover Spirit stopped communicating with mission control. On January 24th it was announced to be a problem with the flash memory that caused the rover to be stuck in a reboot loop. It was repaired remotely and on February 6th Spirit resumed it’s science activities.

January 22nd

1968 – The Apollo 5 mission lifted off as the  first unmanned flight of the Apollo Lunar Module. The Lunar module would go on to carry astronauts to the moon’s surface.

1970 – Boeing‘s 747 ”Jumbo Jet” goes into service on PamAm’s New York – London route.

1984 – Apple launched of the original Macintosh with the famous “1984” commercial during the third quarter of Superbowl 18. The ad cost 1.5 million USD and was directed by film maker Ridley Scott.

 

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