July 16

Podcast Episode

Day in Tech History: July 16th

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622

The beginning of the Islamic calendar.

1907

Orville Redenbacher was born

1951

Dan Bricklin, the creator of VisiCalc – the first spreadsheet program, was born

Little, Brown and Company publish the novel Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger.

1995

The ecommerce site Amazon.com opens for business. The website is run from a converted garage in Bellevue, Washington on three SPARC workstations rigged to ring a bell each time Amazon recorded a sale. The first books sold by the company will be Fluid Concepts & Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought.

1998

scientists at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston and the Institute for Genomic Research in Rockville, Md., say they have mapped the 1.1 million base pairs of DNA that make up the syphilis genome. Thus, the researchers have mapped the entire genetic pattern of the syphilis bacterium. This breakthrough may lead to a new vaccine that will prevent infection by the microbe, and, eventually, eradication of a sexually transmitted disease that has been a worldwide scourge for 500 years.

2004

Microsoft acquired Lookout Software 

Michael Dell, founder of Dell, Inc., steps aside as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) but retains his position as Chairman of the Board. Kevin B. Rollins, who had held a number of executive posts at Dell, becomes the company’s new CEO.

OpenDarwin.org releases version 7.2.1 of OpenDarwin, an open source, multi-platform Unix-like operating system based on Apple’s commercial operating system, Darwin. This version will be the last stable release of the system.

2008

A Judge rules that the SCO group must pay Novel 2.55 million over the Unix patent suits

5,000 Dell callcenter workers in Oregon file a class action lawsuit claiming the company underpaid them.

2012

Yahoo! appoints Google VP Marissa Mayer as CEO of Google