QWERTY Typewriter Patented
June 23, 1868
The Sholes and Glidden typewriter, the first practical and commercially successful typewriter, is patented. Perhaps most notable in the design of the Sholes and Glidden (which would later become the Remington No. 1 typewriter) is the use of the QWERTY keyboard, which is still the most popular keyboard layout in the world.
Jet Mail
June 22, 1946
In a demonstration of the capabilities of jet aircraft, Army Air Corps pilots Kenneth Chilstrom and Robert Baird transport mail in a Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star, thus making the first delivery of mail by jet aircraft.
SpaceShipOne – First Private Space Flight
June 21, 2004
Financed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, SpaceShipOne becomes the first spacecraft developed by the free market to enter spaceflight. Launched from a mothership named White Knight, SpaceShipOne flew just beyond the atmosphere into the threshold of space then glided back to Earth. SpaceShipOne would later win the $10 million Ansari X Prize for the first non-government organization to launch a reusable manned spacecraft.
First Stored Program Run
June 21, 1948
The first program on the world’s first stored-program computer, the Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine (SSEM) is run. This first program was designed to test the computer’s reliability and ran for 52 minutes performing 3.5 million operations.
SEAC Machine Dedicated
June 20, 1950
The National Bureau of Standards dedicated the SEAC (Standards Eastern Automatic Computer) in Washington. The SEAC was the first computer to use all-diode logic, a technology more reliable than vacuum tubes, and was the first stored-program computer completed in the United States. Magnetic tape in the external storage units stored programming information, coded subroutines, numerical data, and output.
Viking 1 Enters Mars Orbit
June 19, 1976
The Viking 1 spacecraft enters the into orbit around the planet Mars 10 months after being launched from Earth. Viking 1 would become the first US spacecraft to land on Mars and the first spacecraft overall to successfully soft land and perform a mission on Mars.
Microsoft Introduces BASIC for 8086
June 18, 1979
In use at the time by over 200,000 computers with the Z80 and 8080 processors, Microsoft BASIC is introduced for the 8086 16-bit microprocessor. By being one of the first to offer a version of the BASIC programming language for a 16-bit processor and making it compatible with their 8-bit versions of BASIC, Microsoft helped move forward 16-bit computing. But perhaps more importantly, by developing for the 8086 processor, they soon formed a relationship with Seattle Computer Products, one of the first companies building computers with an 8086 processor.
As fate would have it, in 1980 Seattle Computer Products was forced to develop an operating system for their computers because a version of the very popular CP/M operating system was delayed for the 8086. It was this 8086 operating system, which SCP called QDOS (for Quick and Dirty Operating System), that Microsoft soon bought the rights for and licensed to IBM for their new PC. And Microsoft thus began their transformation from a simple software development company in the early history of personal computing to one of the most dominant technology companies in history.
DES Cracked
June 17, 1997
A group of users organized over the Internet cracked the Data Encryption Standard — the strongest legally exportable encryption software in the United States — after five months of work. The United States bans stronger encryption software out of fear that it would be used by terrorists, but companies designing the software say such restrictions are worthless because foreign countries offer much stronger programs.
First Two Video Games Copyrighted
June 17, 1980
Atari’s Asteroids and Lunar Lander become the first two video games to be registered with the US Copyright Office. On a side note, I could only find one image that had both games – can anyone translate the German?
Ford Motor Company Incorporated
June 16, 1903
Henry Ford incorporates the Ford Motor Company with ten investors and $28,000. Ford will begin building automobiles on Mack Avenue in Detroit in a converted factory that previously produced wagons.