Technology History: What Happened On This Day
Find your date below: 45 days of the year, each with a technology event from history between 1887 and 2022, its year and a link to the full story in our history calendar.
Inventions, engineering and the companies behind them: railways, bridges and aircraft, the telegraph and radio, computers, video games and the internet. Every day is also a round of Years Ago, our daily history game, so days playing today or in the next 30 days are left out until they have played.
January
January 4, 2010
The Burj Khalifa in Dubai officially opens as the world's tallest building.
January 15, 2001
Wikipedia goes online, an encyclopedia that anyone can edit.
January 18, 1919
Walter Owen Bentley founds Bentley Motors in London.
January 22, 1970
The Boeing 747 "jumbo jet" carries its first passengers, on Pan Am's New York–London route.
January 24, 1984
Apple releases the Macintosh, one of the first mass-market computers with a mouse and a graphical interface.
January 27, 1939
The prototype of Lockheed's twin-boom P-38 Lightning makes its first flight in California.
January 28, 1887
Work begins on the foundations of the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
February
February 2, 1913
Grand Central Terminal opens in New York City, with its vast main concourse and star-painted ceiling.
February 6, 2018
SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket makes its first launch, sending a sports car into orbit around the Sun.
February 9, 1969
The Boeing 747, the first wide-body "jumbo jet," makes its first flight near Seattle.
February 18, 1977
The prototype Space Shuttle Enterprise makes its first flight, carried on the back of a Boeing 747.
February 23, 1947
The International Organization for Standardization is founded, setting global technical standards from Geneva.
February 25, 1978
The first stretch of Vienna's modern U-Bahn opens, running underground from Reumannplatz to Karlsplatz.
March
March 2, 1969
The Concorde prototype makes its first flight from Toulouse, starting tests of the supersonic airliner.
March 15, 1906
Charles Rolls and Henry Royce form the company Rolls-Royce Limited in Britain.
March 19, 1932
The Sydney Harbour Bridge opens, after a man on horseback slashes the ribbon before the premier can cut it.
March 21, 2001
Nintendo releases the Game Boy Advance handheld console in Japan.
April
April 1, 1976
Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne found the Apple Computer Company in California.
April 4, 1975
Bill Gates and Paul Allen found Microsoft in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
April 9, 1967
The Boeing 737 makes its first flight, beginning the best-selling jet airliner family in history.
April 14, 1927
The first series-built Volvo car, the ÖV 4, drives out of the factory in Gothenburg, Sweden.
April 21, 1989
Nintendo releases the Game Boy handheld console in Japan.
April 27, 2005
The Airbus A380, the world's largest passenger airliner, makes its first flight from Toulouse.
May
May 1, 1931
The Empire State Building opens in New York City as the world's tallest building.
May 10, 1975
Sony releases its Betamax video recorder in Japan, bringing home video taping to consumers.
May 22, 1980
Namco releases Pac-Man in Japan, launching one of the most famous video game characters ever.
May 27, 1937
The Golden Gate Bridge opens to pedestrians in San Francisco, then the world's longest suspension span.
May 28, 1937
The German state founds the company that becomes Volkswagen, to build an affordable "people's car."
July
August
August 12, 1981
IBM introduces its Personal Computer, the machine that set the standard for desktop PCs.
August 16, 1993
Ian Murdock announces Debian, a new Linux distribution to be built by volunteers.
August 22, 2016
Google releases Android Nougat, version 7.0 of its mobile operating system.
August 23, 1991
The Super Nintendo Entertainment System goes on sale in North America.
September
September 4, 1994
Kansai International Airport opens on an artificial island in Osaka Bay, Japan.
October
October 1, 1964
Japan's Tokaido Shinkansen opens between Tokyo and Osaka, the world's first high-speed rail line.
October 15, 1997
British jet car ThrustSSC, driven by Andy Green, sets the first supersonic land speed record.
November
November 30, 2022
OpenAI releases ChatGPT to the public, and the AI chatbot becomes one of the fastest-growing apps ever.
December
December 8, 2010
SpaceX launches its Dragon capsule into orbit and recovers it, the first private company to do so.
December 9, 1968
Douglas Engelbart gives the 'Mother of All Demos,' showing the computer mouse, hypertext and video calls.
December 10, 1993
id Software releases the first episode of the first-person shooter Doom as shareware on the internet.
December 14, 2004
France inaugurates the Millau Viaduct, the tallest bridge in the world, over the Tarn valley.
December 18, 1958
The US launches SCORE, the first communications satellite, which later broadcasts a Christmas message.
December 22, 1964
The Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird makes its first flight in California.
December 24, 1979
Europe's Ariane 1 rocket makes its first successful launch from French Guiana.
Frequently asked questions
- What counts as a technology event?
- Inventions, engineering and the companies behind them: railways, bridges and aircraft, the telegraph and radio, computers, video games and the internet.
- Why are some days of the year missing?
- Our history calendar has one event for each day, and this page lists the days whose event is about technology. Every day is also a round of Years Ago, our daily history game, so a day playing today or in the next 30 days is left out until it has played, and then comes back.
- How are the dates checked?
- Each event was checked against at least 2 independent sources, linked on its day in the history calendar, and the summary is written in our own words.
More history
Play today’s puzzleHistory calendar
Other topics: