On June 14, 1951, the U.S. Census Bureau dedicated UNIVAC,
the first commercially produced electronic digital computer in
the United States.

These giant computers, which used thousands of vacuum tubes
for computation, were the forerunners of today’s computers.

A few months earlier, a general-purpose digital computer
called the Ferranti Mark 1, had been sold and delivered to
Manchester University in the UK.     

        
        
       

During a break in the action of Super Bowl XVIII on January
22nd, 1984, audiences first saw a commercial directed by
Ridley Scott that is now widely agreed to be one of the
most powerful and effective of all time.

Apple’s "1984" spot, featuring a woman throwing a
sledgehammer through a screen on which a Big
Brother-like figure preaches about "the unification
of thought," got people around the United States
talking and heralded a new age for Apple, consumer       
technology and advertising.
       

Steve Jobs with the Apple 1984 computer.        
        
        
        

     
    
              
TIM MIGUIRE 
                                                    

       

1990

Oscar-winning actress Julia Roberts is 58 years young
today.

On May 11, 1997, chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov resigned
after 19 moves in a game against Deep Blue, a chess-playing
computer developed by scientists at IBM. This was the sixth
and final game of their match, which Kasparov lost two games
to one, with three draws.

Kasparov, a chess prodigy from Azerbaijan, was a skillful chess
player from childhood. At 21, Kasparov played Anatoly Karpov
for the world title, but the 49-game match ended indecisively.

The next year, Kasparov beat Karpov to become the youngest
world champion in history. With a FIDE (Federation International
des Echecs) score of 2800, and a streak of 12 world chess titles
in a row, Kasparov was considered the greatest chess player in
history going into his match with Deep Blue.

Garry Kimovich Kasparov

Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee (69).

On April 30, 1993, four years after publishing a proposal for
“an idea of linked information systems,” computer scientist
Tim Berners-Lee released the source code for the world’s
first web browser and editor. 

The browser, originally called Mesh, that he dubbed World
Wide Web became the first royalty-free, easy-to-use means
of browsing the emerging information network that soon
developed into the internet as we know it today.

The average American now spends 24 hours a week online.

2024

This NeXT Computer was used by Berners-Lee at CERN and became the world’s first web server.