In 1896 – Samuel Pierpoint Langley’s Aerodrome No. 5 made the first successful flight of an unpiloted, engine-driven, heavier-than-air craft of substantial size.

In 1949 – The EDSAC, the first practical stored program computer, performed its first calculation. It operated at a speed of 714 operations per second.

In 2002 – Apple’s Steve Jobs previewed Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar during his Worldwide Developers Conference keynote. It featured a handwriting technology dubbed Inkwell, an iChat instant messenger client, QuickTime 6 integration and more.

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In 1961 – First NASA astronaut Alan Shepard piloted the Freedom 7 Mercury capsule on its 15-minute 28-second suborbital flight.

In 1992 – Id Software released Wolfenstein 3-D. It wasn’t the original first person shooter, but it launched the form into widespread popularity.

In 1999 – Microsoft shipped Windows 98 SE to manufacturers. The new version included Internet Connection Sharing, Internet Explorer 5, Windows NetMeeting 3.

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

In 1995 – German electronics company Escom AG bought the rights to the name, patents and intellectual property of Commodore Electronics Ltd. for $10 million. Commodore had gone bankrupt the year before.

In 2000 – The “I Love You” virus spread to 55 million computers around the world, hijacking hard drives and deleting, renaming, or damaging files. The damage reached billions of dollars.

In 2004 – Apple announced that Steve Jobs would kick off that year’s Worldwide Developers Conference by talking about Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger.

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