Today in Tech History – July 13

1919 – The British airship R34 finished the first airship roundtrip journey across the Atlantic from Scotland to Mineola, Long Island and back to Norfolk, England after 182 hours of flight.

1973 – Alexander Butterfield revealed the existence of the Nixon tapes to the US senate committee investigating the Watergate break-in. Always make back-ups, unless you want to remain President.

1977 – Lightning struck a Consolidated Edison substation on the Hudson River, tripping two circuit breakers and setting off a chain of events that resulted in a massive power failure. The entire city of New York was blacked out.

1985 – Live Aid

            Live Aid was first held. The event was organized by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure to raise funds for Ethiopian famine relief. Over 175,000 people attended what was called the global jukebox. The concert was held simultaneously in Wembley Stadium in London, England, United Kingdom and John. F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. It was one of the first largest shows broadcast on satellite in 1985.

1992 – IBM, Toshiba, and Siemens Alliance to Develop Memory Chips

           IBM announced an alliance with Toshiba and Siemens to develop memory chips for computers. The international cooperation marked a shift in the semiconductor industry, which had primarily seen such companies fighting bitterly with each other for control of the market. Experts pointed to the alliance as an example of a new global economy that had little use for borders.

2001 – Code Red Worms its Way into the Internet

           The Code Red worm is released onto the internet. Targeting Microsoft’s IIS web server, Code Red had a significant effect on the internet due to the speed and efficiency of its spread. Much of this was due to the fact that IIS was often enabled by default on much installation of Windows NT and Windows 2000. However, Code Red also affected many other system with web servers, mostly by way of side-effect, exacerbating the overall impact of the worm, ensuring its place in history among the many malware outbreaks infecting Windows system in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s.

2011 – Netflix Splits DVD-Streaming

             CEO Reed Hasting announced a bombshell that, in turn, brought on Netflix’s single worst year ever. He announced that they were splitting Netflix streaming from DVD rentals. With that, the price would be doubled - $8 for 2 DVD rental plan and $8 for streaming. If you were an existing customer, you would be grandfathered in until September. This news caused their stock to fall, which continued when hasting announced the DVD division was to be rebranded as Qwikster, and sold.

 

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