December 31: Dissolution of the Soviet Union (1991)

The Soviet Union in 1991

The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR or CCCP in Cyrillic) was created in 1922 and officially dissolved on December 31, 1991. Mikhail Gorbachev, head of the state, made significant changes in the economic and party leadership, called perestroika, and his policy glasnost freed public access to information after long years of heavy censorship. This change stimulated the independence movement of the Soviet Union's Eastern European satellite states that were engaged in the Cold War. As a matter of fact, Gorbachev ended the Cold War. On April 7, 1990, a law was passed allowing a republic to secede if more than two-thirds of its residents voted for it in a referendum. A referendum for the reservation of the Soviet Union was held on March 17, 1991. Nine out of the 15 republics voted for the preservation of the Union, however, a looser form of the union was suggested. As a result, the Soviet Union was dissolved and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) was established in its place. 

December 30: Hubble announced that our galaxy is not the only one (1924)

Edwin Hubble

Edwin Powell Hubble, an American astronomer, announced that the spiral nebula Andromeda is a galaxy and our galaxy Milky Way is not the only galaxy in the universe. It changed the conventional view to the universe, which meant our galaxy is the universe. Hubble also calculated the distance between Andromeda and earth by using Henrietta Leavitt's formula. Later he discovered a couple of dozen galaxies. He also analyzed the Doppler effect on the spectroscopic signals of receding stars and discovered that their red shift was proportional to their distance. Due to his contribution to astronomy, NASA named its space telescope after him.

December 29: Feynman's talk openning the nanotechnology era (1959)

Richard Feynman

The renowned physicist Richard Phillips Feynman gave a lecture entitled "There's plenty of room at the bottom" at an American Physical Society meeting at Caltech on December 29, 1959. Feynman presented the possibility of direct manipulation of individual atoms as a more powerful form of synthetic chemistry than those used at the time. This lecture is regarded as the birth of nanotechnology. Eric Drexler took the Feynman's concept of a billion tiny factories and added the concepts of copies of themselves with computer-aided control, which appeared in his book "Engines of creation: The coming era of nanotechnology", published in 1986. (By the way, Feynman received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965 for his contribution to the quantum electrodynamics.)

December 28: Röntgen published a paper on the discovery of X-ray (1895)

Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, a German physicist, published a paper about a new type of radiation, which was later known as X-ray. The discovery of X-ray, based on experiments, were made on November 8, 1895 and the result was summarized and published on this date. He did not want to apply for any patent related to his discovery and wanted mankind to benefit from practical applications of the discovery. This achievement earned him the first Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901. As we all know and benefit from the discovery, X-ray improved the quality of our lives, not only in medicine but also in many areas of engineering.

December 27: The World Bank and IMF were created (1945)

World Bank

IMF

The World Bank (in fact, the International Bank of Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), which is a part of the World Bank) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) came into existence on December 27, 1945 when 29 countries signed the agreement, as a result of the Bretton Woods conference in 1944. The formal name of the Bretton Woods conference is the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference and it was a gathering of 740 delegates from 44 member nations, held in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. At the conference, the United States and the United Kingdom dominated the negotiation - John Maynard Keynes represented the United Kingdom and Harry Dexter White represented the United States. Both organizations are based in Washington, D.C., however, the World bank is, conventionally, headed by an American, while the IMF is led by a European. The main goal of these organizations is to foster global monetary cooperation and reduce poverty around the world and they have contributed to the global economic stability. Due to their strict control over the borrowing government and the condition of their loan, these organizations are often perceived negatively.

December 26: Time Magazine's Machine of the Year (1982)

The personal computer was selected by Time magazine as the Man (in this case Machine) of the Year. This was the first time when the editor chose a non-human recipient of the award. It had been awarded to highly influential personnel such as political leaders and government officials. It was a significant recognition of the influence of the personal computer to the human life. In 1982, about 3 million personal computers were sold and the personal computer market had grown rapidly. At the time, Apple computers and IBM PCs had played a major role in the growth of the personal computer market. Personal computers have changed our lifestyle dramatically and the change is still on-going.

December 25: Christmas Day

Wish everyone a peaceful and merry Christmas and share the spirit of Christmas!

December 24: NORAD (formerly CONAD) has tracked Santa since 1955

The emblem of NORAD Tracks Santa

In 1955, a Sears department store advertised that children can call and talk to Santa Claus but the phone number was incorrect and it happened to be a number of Colorado Springs' Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) Center. Colonel Shoup of CONAD told his staff to give all children that called in a current location of Santa Claus. This tradition has continued and CONAD was succeeded by the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). NORAD has offered an annual Christmas-themed entertainment program tracking Santa on every Christmas eve since 1958. Santa tracking can be also viewable via web at www.noradsanta.org and the tracking starts from 0am on December 24. You can also see the Santa's whereabouts with the Google Earth plugin from the NORAD website.

December 23: The transistor was first demonstrated at Bell Labs (1947)

At AT&T's Bell Labs, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain performed experiments and observed that a signal was produced with the output power greater than the input when two gold point contacts were applied to a crystal of germanium. William Shockley, Bell Labs' Solid State Physics Group leader, saw the potential of this amplifier and worked further on it with Bardeen and Brattain. Within a year, the three researchers developed the first point-contact transistor. The term transistor was coined by John Pierce, meaning "transfer resistor". This was one of the monumental cornerstones of the semiconductor era.

December 22: Berlin's Brandenburg Gate re-opened (1989)

The Brandenburg Gate of Berlin was re-opened as one of the milestones to the German reunification, happened in 1990. On November 9, 1989, the Wall between West and East Berlin fell as part of the Revolutions of 1989. On December 22, 1989, Helmut Kohl, the West German chancellor, walked through the gate and was greeted by Hans Modrow, the East German prime minister. The German reunification was eventually finalized on October 3, 1990. During the process, West and East Berlin became reunited and Berlin has become a city-state just like Bremen and Hamburg.  

December 21: The premiere of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)

Walt Disney's movie Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was the first full-length animated feature in motion picture history and was the first produced in full colour. The movie premiered at the Carthay Circle Theater, Los Angeles, California in 1937. The movie is based on Snow White, a German fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm. The American Film Institute named this movie as the greatest American animated film of all time, in 1998. The movie is historically and culturally significant. 

December 20: Apple acquired NeXT (1996)

Apple Computer announced the coming acquisition of NeXT Software (formerly NeXT Computer) in a deal with a total estimated value of $427 million and 1.5 million shares of Apple stock. Under the terms of the acquisition, Steve Jobs, the founder of both companies, would rejoin Apple Computer as an advisor to then CEO Gilbert Amelio. As we all know, Jobs became interim CEO soon after his return and then CEO. This acquisition enabled the creation of Mac OS X, the current operating systems of the Mac product line. The concepts and products of NeXT Software became the basis of Mac OS X, including NeXTSTEP, OPENSTEP, and WebObjects. NeXT shipped only about 50,000 units of NeXT computers, however, its impact to the computer industry was not small. Trivia: The first web server set up by Tim Berners-Lee ran on a NeXT computer.

December 19: The Jules Rimet trophy was stolen (1983)

A replica of the Jules
Rimet trophy

The original FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) World Cup trophy, the Jules Rimet trophy, was stolen from the headquarters of the Brazilian Football Confederation in Rio de Janeiro and has never been recovered. The Jules Rimet trophy had been presented for the victory of the FIFA World Cup games since 1930. Jules Rimet was the third president of FIFA and also FIFA's longest serving president. He passed a vote to initiate the World Cup tournament in 1929 and the first world cup tournament was held in 1930. The trophy was officially named after him in 1946. After Brazil's third victory of the tournament in 1970, Brazil was entitled to keep the trophy permanently. After the 1970 tournament, a replacement trophy was commissioned by FIFA for the 1974 World Cup, which became the current FIFA World Cup trophy.     

December 18: Release of Perl programming language (1987)

Larry Wall released the first version of the high-level general purpose interpreted programming language Perl in 1987. Since then, Larry Wall has been overseeing the development and revisions of the programming language. The latest preview version is 5.15.3 and Wall is overseeing the upcoming version 6 of the language. Perl was started as a UNIX scripting language and has become widely popular since 1990s when it was begun to be adopted as a CGI scripting language for web programming. Perl is flexible and its parsing and pattern matching capability facilitates various system and scientific tasks. Thank you Larry for your great work! 

December 17: First human-airflight by the Wright brothers (1903)

The Wright brothers, Wilbur and Orville, built an airplane and made the first controlled and powered human-flight. The importance of their flight was the three-axis control. Their first patent was also about the invention of an aerodynamic control system for a flying machine. In two years from the first flight, the brothers built the first practical fixed-wing airplane.      

December 16: The first point-contact transistor was built (1947)

William Bradford Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Houser Brattain built a point-contact transistor at Bell Laboratories. A point-contact transistor was the first type of solid-state electronic transistor ever built. Germanium was used for semiconductor material in this experiment and it had been used as major material for semiconductors for two decades until it was replaced by silicon and other materials. The point-contact transistor was quickly superseded by the junction transistor. Transistors were the beginning of the revolution made by integrated circuits.   

December 15: Netscape 1.0 was released (1994)

Netscape Navigator 1.22

A proprietary web browser Netscape Navigator 1.0 of Netscape Communications Corporation was released, which was the dominant browser in term of use. Netscape Communications Corporation was founded by Marc Andreessen and Jim Clark. Netscape Navigator was written based on the Mosaic web browser, which was co-written by Marc Andreessen while he was a student at the University of Illinois and a part-time employee of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). Its dominance was largely shaken by the release of Microsoft Internet Explorer and its use share was almost disappeared by 2002. Free bundling of Internet Explorer within Microsoft's operating system was a main premise of the Microsoft antitrust trial where the court ruled that the bundling was a monopolistic and illegal business practice. However, the decision came too late for Netscape, by the time, Internet Explorer became the dominant web browser on Windows operating system. Though it could not keep its success in the market, the Netscape Navigator web browser was the browser that demonstrated the potential of the Internet to the public and brought them to the Internet. Its contribution to the Internet community and industry was enormous. The Netscape Navigator browser was succeeded by the Netscape Communicator and then became the base for the Mozilla Application Suite, from which Mozilla Firefox was spun off. In a way, the Netscape Navigator is surviving within Mozilla Firefox, one of the most successful and resourceful browsers in the current market.

December 14: Mariner 2 flew by Venus (1962)

Mariner 2

Mariner 2, an American space probe to Venus, made the first space probe to successfully encounter a planet. Mariner 2 flew by Venus, which is the nearest planet from earth, on December 14, 1962 and scanned the planet with its dual radiometers and sent the collected information back to NASA. It was the first planetary data collection from a man-made spacecraft through a physical encounter with the planet. Mariner 2 also measured the solar wind and interplanetary dust on its way to Venus. Since its launch on August 27, 1962, Mariner 2 traveled for 109 days and then passed Venus at its closest distance of 35,000km. On December 27, 1962, spacecraft perihelion occurred at 105,464,560km and the last transmission was received from Mariner 2 on January 3, 1963. It was almost 50 years ago. It seems we were more adventurous and more audacious than we now are.

December 13 George Pólya was born (1887)

George Pólya, a Hungarian mathematician, was born in Budapest. Pólya made significant contribution to the foundation of combinatorics, number theory, numerical analysis, and probability theory. His contribution to problem-solving is also huge, for example, his book How to solve it has been very well received by young mathematicians and students. Pólya provides general heuristics of solving problem of various kinds, not only mathematical ones. Highly recognized prizes were created after his name by the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, the Mathematical Association of America and the London Mathematical Society. He taught at ETH Zurich and Stanford and carried on as Stanford Professor Emeritus the rest of his life. He passed away on September 7, 1985.  

December 12: Apple Computer's IPO (1980)

Apple launched the initial public offering  (IPO) of its stock to the public on the NASDAQ market under the stock symbol "AAPL". The IPO generated more capital than any other IPO since Ford Motor Company in 1956 and created more millionaires than any company in history. Steve Jobs, co-founder and the largest shareholder of the company, held stock valued at $217 million. After the launch of Macintosh, Steve Jobs was ousted and the company was run by CEOs Sculley, Spindler, and Amelio; during the period, the company was gradually losing its creativity, innovation and value. While the company was near bankruptcy, Steve Jobs returned to the company and made a great turnaround with fascinating products and innovative business model. Steve Job remained as the Chairman of the company board until his departure on October 5, 2011 at his age of 56. Apple became an iconic company with countless followers (or consumers).   

December 11: Kyoto Protocol opened for signature (1997)

Participation in the Kyoto Protocol
as of December 2010

The Kyoto Protocol is a protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change aimed at fighting against global warming. The goal of the protocol is to achieve the stabilization of green house gas concentration in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous impact on the climate system. As of September 2011, 191 states have signed and ratified the protocol. The United States of American is the only country that has signed but has not ratified the protocol. There is skepticism that the climate change is happening in a bigger scale than the scale that the human race can change the course and many activities happening under the name of preventing global warming are results of overestimation of the human influence to the nature or, even worse, outcomes of certain economic motivation such as carbon trading.

December 10: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was published (1884)

Mark Twain's "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" was published in Canada and England on December 10, 1884. It was a sequel to "The adventures of Tom Sawyer", which was published in 1876.  The sequel does not have the definite article "the" in the title unlike the Tom Sawyer book and a critic explained that this is because Huckleberry Finn's adventure was not complete or never fulfilled in the book. Both books' background was places along the Mississippi River. Mark Twain is the pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens. His books are filled with American wit and humour. William Falkner called Mark Twain the father of American literature.

December 9: Christmas Tree worm was discovered (1987)

A screen capture of the infected
computer by Christmas Tree worm

Christmas Tree was the first widely spread disruptive computer worm, which paralyzed several international computer networks including BITNET, EARN, IBM VNET in December 1987. It was written by a student at TU Clausthal in Germany, in the Rexx script language with EXE extension. This worm asked the user to type CHRISTMAS in the command line and if the user typed the text, it then drew a Christmas tree as text graphics and sent itself to every entry stored in the email contacts file. This harmless looking computer code caused a significant disruption to the public network. It made us think of how the benefits of the network can be adversely abused to defeat the network.

December 8: The first trial run of Colossus at Bletchley Park (1943)

Colossus Mark II

Colossus Mark 1, the world's first electronic digital programmable computer, had its first trial run at Bletchley Park, which was the UK's code breaking centre during the World War II. Colossus was designed by Thomas H. Flowers at the Post Office Research Station, Dollis Hill and then moved to Bletchley Park. Colossus computers were mainly used to find the key combinations of German rotor cipher devices such as Lorenz cipher machines and Enigma machines. The central processing unit consisted of about 1,500 thermionic values and thyratrons. The input media was paper tape and output devices were teleprinters and indicator lamp display panels. There was no memory device in it. The operation of Colossus computers were ceased on June 8, 1945. It was pity to discontinue the operation of Colossus computers, however, the people worked on the projects at Bletchley Park have significantly contributed to the progress of computer science and engineering.  Jack Copeland's book about Colossus is an interesting read.

December 7: Marcus Tullius Cicero was assassinated (43 BC)

Marcus Tullius Cicero was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, and writer. Cicero was one of the greatest orators and writers. His letters and speeches are a primary source of Latin text. More than 800 letters of Cicero survived. In the Senate, Cicero championed a return to the republican government, which is against the idea of Gaius Julius Caesar who played a key role in the transformation of the Roman Republic to the Roman Empire. In 44 BC, Caesar was assassinated by the Liberatores, a group of people supporting the Senate and the Republic. Cicero became a popular leader of the republicans. Later, Octavius, Caesar's adopted son and heir, formed the Second Triumvirate with Marcus Lepidus and Marcus Antonius. Cicero was proscribed  as an enemy of the state by the Second Triumvirate and then killed in 43 BC.

December 6: The first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica was published (1768)

The first edition of
the Encyclopædia Britannica

The Encyclopædia Britannica is the oldest English-language encyclopaedia still in print. Its first edition was published in 1768. The encyclopaedia has been issued in 15 editions so far. It had been an excellent and popular reference before the Internet era. Though there were criticisms like outdated information, bias opinions, often lack of expertise, the encyclopaedia enjoyed its status as one of the most authoritative sources of knowledge and information. Authors or contributors of the encyclopaedia have include authorities like Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, and Leon Trotsky. Nowadays, web-based reference services based on mass-sourcing, such as Wikipedia and Encarta, are dominating the reference market and this trend makes the survival of off-line only reference media extremely difficult.

December 5: Walt Disney was born (1901)

Walt Disney

Walter Elias "Walt" Disney, co-founder of the Walt Disney Company with his brother Roy Disney, was born. Walt Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entertainer, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. The Walt Disney Company became the largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. Its revenue in the fiscal year 2010 was US $38 billion. Walt Disney was an innovator in animation and theme park design. Disney received his first Academy Award for the creation of Mickey Mouse. Disney's animation movies and cartoon series include Popeye the Sailor, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Bambi, Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan, to name a few. Disney animation movies have been popular around the world and are often viewed as a symbol of the American capitalism or cultural invasion in some countries. One thing clear is there are many people grown up with his animation. Walt Disney passed away on December 15, 1966.

December 4: The Montreal Canadiens ice hockey club was founded (1909)

Montreal Canadiens

The Montreal Canadiens ice hockey club, the oldest ice hockey franchise in the world, was founded as a charter member of the National Hockey Association, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is the longest continuously operating professional ice hockey team in the world and was the only existing team founded before the foundation of the National Hockey League in 1917.  Montreal Canadiens won the Stanley Cup 24 times and became the conference champion 8 times. A definite legend in the world hockey history.

December 3: The Ottawa Treaty to ban anti-personnel landmines (1997)

Anti-personnel mines
(M14, Valmara 69, VS-50)

In Ottawa, Canada, the Ottawa Treaty, which bans manufacturing and deploying anti-personnel landmines, was opened for signature. Canada, Ireland and Mauritius became the first states to ratify the treaty on this date. As of September 2011, 158 states have ratified or acceded to the treaty. However, over 30 states, which are main consumers or producers of such landmines, did not sign the treaty, including the United States of America, People's Republic of China, Russia, India, Pakistan, Israel, many middle east states, North Korea and South Korea. Anti-personnel landmines are designed to injure, but not kill, victims in order to increase the logistical or medical needs to the enemy forces. They may be effective and efficient in the battle, but they are extremely inhumane or anti-human.

December 2: Enron filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy (2001)

Enron, a Houston, Texas-based American energy, commodities and services company, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Before the bankruptcy, Enron was one of the world's leading energy companies dealing with electricity, natural gas, communications, pulp and paper and its revenue was nearly $101 billion in 2000. Enron was very creative and innovative in energy trading in many ways including online trading, however, it should not have used its creativity in accounting. In 2001, it was revealed that its reported financial condition was sustained substantially by systematically manipulated accounting fraud. It then became a symbol of willful corporate fraud and also raised a question of corporate accounting and audit practice. As a result of the Enron scandal, the Arthur Anderson accounting firm was dissolved. The impact of the scandal to the US economy, further to the global economy, was significant. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) of 2002 was created to tighten up the financial controls of American corporations and to fix malfunctioning corporate governance and accounting practice. Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room - an interesting and comprehensive book (2003) and documentary film (2005) about the scandal.

December 1: Lady Astor became the first female MP (1919)

Lady Astor

Nancy Witcher Astor, Viscountess Astor, became the first female Member of Parliament to sit in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. Lady Astor represented the Conservative Party and was the wife of Waldorf Astor, 2nd Viscount Astor, who was an American-born British politician and newspaper proprietor. Lady Astor ran for the seat occupied by her husband after Viscount Astor became a member of the House of Lords. In fact, the first woman elected to the British Parliament was Constance Markievicz, but she did not take up the seat in the Parliament. Though Lady Astor's campaign success was largely dependent on the influence and wealth of her husband, it was a meaningful step forward to gender equality in politics.