1859 – A unique combination of solar events including a magnetic explosion severely affected the young telegraph network in North America and Europe. Wires shorted out, fires started and some machines reportedly worked even when disconnected from batteries.

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2003/23oct_superstorm/

1997 – IBM announced that its RS/6000 SP model parallel supercomputer, was now 58 percent faster than Deep Blue, the computer that beat Kasparov at chess.

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/IBM+Makes+RS%2F6000+SP+Even+Faster%3B+Performance+Gains+Announced+for…-a019735249

2001 – At ECTS in London, Blizzard announced an online RPG version of its popular Warcraft franchise, called “World of Warcraft”.

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/ects-2001-world-of-warcraft-announced/1100-2810134/

Read Tom’s science fiction and other fiction books at Merritt’s Books site.

1902 -Georges Méliès’ film Le voyage dans la lune (A Trip to the Moon) debuted in France. It is often considered the first real science fiction film.

http://www.euronews.com/2011/08/31/back-in-the-day-the-dawn-of-science-fiction/

1994 – The United States Library of Congress held the first of several meetings to plan the conversion of its materials to digital form and make them accessible by computer networks.

http://www.computerhistory.org/tdih/September/1/

1996 – Apple released its Pippin game console in the US. The idea was to provide an inexpensive game-focused computer. Apple licensed third parties like Bandai to make Pippin consoles.

http://web.archive.org/web/20100527212315/http://web.mac.com/sebangulo/Pippin/About_the_Pippin.html

2008 – Google launched its Web browser called Google Chrome.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/fresh-take-on-browser.html

Read Tom’s science fiction and other fiction books at Merritt’s Books site.

1885 – Gottlieb Daimler received a patent for adding an internal combustion engine to a bicycle to make the first gasoline-driven motorcycle.

http://www.wired.com/thisdayintech/2011/08/0830daimler-first-true-motorcycle/

1907 – John Mauchly was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. He would grow up to pioneer the design and construction of ENIAC along with Presper Eckert as well as contribute to the creation of BINAC and UNIVAC.

http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Mauchly.html

1963 – A direct line of communication between the leaders of the USA and USSR, dubbed “The Hotline” began operation.

http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/30/aug-30-1963-communications-hot-line-connects-soviet-and-u-s-heads-of-state/

1969 – BBN delivered the first Interface Message Processor (IMP) to the Network Measurements Center at UCLA. It was built from a Honeywell DDP 516 computer with 12K of memory, and would be used in October to make the first Internet connection with Stanford. Graduate students Vinton Cerf, Steve Crocker, Bill Naylor, Jon Postel, and Mike Wingfield were charged with installation.

http://www.livinginternet.com/i/ii_arpanet.htm

1982 – A copyright was issued to 16-year-old V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai for a computer program he called “EMAIL,” short for “electronic mail.” While Ayyadurai may not be considered the inventor of email he definitely deserves credit for establishing the name.

http://allthingsd.com/20120904/email-turns-30/

Read Tom’s science fiction and other fiction books at Merritt’s Books site.

1831 – Michael Faraday discovered electromagnetic induction, which is used in power generation and power transmission by generators, transformers, induction motors, electric motors, synchronous motors, and solenoids.

https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/200108/history.cfm

1965 – Astronaut L. Gordon Cooper, orbiting 100 miles above the Earth in Gemini 5 talked with aquanaut M. Scott Carpenter in Sealab II, 205 feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean. It happened to be Cooper’s wedding anniversary.

http://history.nasa.gov/40thmerc7/cooper.htm

1990 – The British Computer Misuse Act went into effect. The Act resulted from a long debate in the 1980s over failed prosecutions of hackers.

http://usir.salford.ac.uk/15815/7/MacEwan_Crim_LR.pdf

1997 – Marc Randolph and Reed Hastings founded Kibble Inc. The service initially let you rent individual DVDs by mail without late fees. There was no subscription service and no streaming. And the service was later renamed Netflix.

http://money.cnn.com/quote/profile/profile.html?symb=NFLX

2003 – Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis started Skype service, the Voice over Internet Provider that would go on to dominate the space.

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/09/skypes-secrets/

2005 – Music service Pandora left preview and became open for all to use.

http://blog.pandora.com/2005/08/29/pandora_for_eve/

Read Tom’s science fiction and other fiction books at Merritt’s Books site.