July 4
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Special
Happy Fourth of July! Today is the day the United States celebrates Independence Day, which is commonly referred to in the States simply as “The Fourth.” For those of you not acquainted with the holiday, today is the day we celebrate just how right we were in establishing our own nation by grilling up red meat outdoors over open flames, setting things on fire, and blowing things up.
Podcast Episode
Yesterday - Tomorrow - Day In Tech History
Prev: July 3 - Next: July 5 - Full Catalog list at Day in Technology History Project
1883
Rube Goldberg - Popular author and inventor, was born. He was most noted for creating complex designs to do simple tasks.
1983
Nintendo releases Donkey Kong 3 for the Famicom and Arcade.
1985
Tim Stryker launches Galacticomm and its main product, the MajorBBS Software Package.
1996
Hotmail, the first webmail service, is commercially launched on Independence Day in the United States, symbolically representing freedom from Internet service providers. The company was started the year before by Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith. In January 1998, the company will be sold to Microsoft for US$400 million. Prior to Hotmail, Bhatia was a systems integrator at Apple Computer, where he coordinated the design and manufacturing of Apple Powerbook. He also worked for Fire Power Systems - a Silicon Valley start up. Read more about the history of Hotmail at Wired.
1999
Version 1.03 of HydraBBS is released.
2001
The eBay auction begun Sunday, June 24 for item #1249640557 is concluded and “Buyatari” wins Jerry Jessop’s Atari 2700 prototype for US$2626.00.
2002
The US Army releases the tactical first-person shooter America’s Army for the personal computer in the US. America’s Army was developed by the MOVES Institute at the Naval Postgraduate School, in Monterey, California, and is based on the Unreal Engine. It was financed by US tax dollars and distributed for free. It is the first computer video game to make recruitment an explicit goal and the first well-known overt use of computer gaming for political aims. The game is used as a playable recruiting tool and critics have charged the game serves as a propaganda device. It is often pointed out that the game bears resemblance to the movie The Last Starfighter and to the novel Ender’s Game .
2005
Google announces that Gmail Deutschland will be rebranded to Google Mail. From that point forward, visitors originating from an IP address determined to be in Germany will be forwarded to Googlemail.com where they could obtain an email address containing the new domain.
2008
The 1 euro eBay Baby goes home to the parents.
Verisign announces an interim CEO in founder and chairman, Jim Bidzos, when William Roper stepped down.
Ask.com completes the acquisition of Dictionary.com and Thesaurus.com through the Lexico Publishing Group.
2009
Jason Hiner from Tech Republic asked the question: Who would be the president of the Internet. Leo Laporte, Molly Wood, Marc Andreesen or Jason Calacanis. Leo won with 41% of the vote.
2011
Microsoft signs a search pact with Baidu
