Computer History - May

• BASIC Programming Language First Runs at Dartmouth College at 4:00 a.m.

  At 4:00 a.m. on May 1, 1964, Professor John Kemeny and student programmer John McGeachie simultaneously typed RUN on neighboring terminals in the basement of College Hall, proving both that BASIC worked and that the Dartmouth Time-Sharing System could serve multiple users at once. This was the birth of BASIC (Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code), the language that would eventually run on millions of home computers worldwide.

  May 01, 1964

• US Removes GPS Selective Availability, Improving Civilian Accuracy Tenfold

  At midnight on May 1, 2000, President Bill Clinton directed the US government to permanently disable Selective Availability (SA), the intentional degradation of the civilian GPS signal that had limited accuracy to about 100 meters. The change immediately improved civilian GPS accuracy to roughly 10-20 meters, enabling the consumer GPS navigation, logistics, and location-based technology industries we rely on today.

  May 01, 2000

• Microsoft Introduces Its First Two-Button Mouse for Personal Computers

  On May 2, 1983, Microsoft released its first computer mouse - a two-button device priced at $195 designed for use with Microsoft Word for MS-DOS. The device helped establish the mouse as a standard PC peripheral and marked Microsoft's early commitment to graphical user interface computing, well before Windows became dominant.

  May 02, 1983

• Earliest Known Commercial Email Spam Sent Across ARPANET by DEC Marketing Manager

  On May 3, 1978, Gary Thuerk, a marketing manager at Digital Equipment Corporation, sent an unsolicited promotional message to approximately 400 ARPANET users advertising new DEC computers - the first known instance of commercial email spam. The blast caused immediate outrage from ARPANET administrators and established the precedent for debates over acceptable use of networked computing resources.

  May 03, 1978

• Jaron Lanier Born - Pioneer Who Coined the Term Virtual Reality

  Jaron Lanier was born on May 3, 1960, and went on to coin the term "virtual reality," co-found VPL Research in 1984, and develop the first commercial VR hardware including the DataGlove and EyePhone headset. His work in the 1980s established the conceptual and technical foundations for immersive three-dimensional computing environments that continue to influence gaming, simulation, medicine, and design.

  May 03, 1960

• Commodore International Brand and Assets Purchased at Auction by German Firm Escom AG

  On May 4, 1995, German electronics retailer Escom AG acquired the brand, trademarks, and remaining assets of bankrupt Commodore International for approximately $10 million, ending one of the most storied eras in personal computing. Commodore had introduced millions worldwide to home computing through the VIC-20, the Commodore 64 (the best-selling individual computer model ever manufactured), and the innovative Amiga series.

  May 04, 1995

• ILOVEYOU Worm Spreads from Manila Across the Globe, Infecting 45 Million Computers

  On May 4, 2000, the ILOVEYOU worm - created by Filipino computer science student Onel de Guzman as a password-stealing tool - began spreading from Manila across corporate email systems worldwide, infecting an estimated 45 million computers within 24 hours and causing an estimated $10-15 billion in damages. The worm exploited social engineering by masquerading as a love letter, exposing how human curiosity could be weaponized to devastate global digital infrastructure.

  May 04, 2000

• Geoffrey Dummer Proposes the Integrated Circuit Concept at US Electronics Symposium

  On May 5, 1952, British Royal Radar Establishment engineer Geoffrey W.A. Dummer presented a paper in Washington, D.C., describing a solid block of semiconductor material in which all electronic components would be fabricated directly into the material with no connecting wires - the foundational concept of the integrated circuit. Though Dummer lacked funding to build a prototype, his published concept anticipated by several years the IC independently developed by Jack Kilby (1958) and Robert Noyce (1959).

  May 05, 1952

• Freedom 7 Carries Alan Shepard as First American in Space, Tracked by IBM Computers

  On May 5, 1961, astronaut Alan Shepard became the first American in space aboard the Mercury capsule Freedom 7, completing a 15-minute suborbital flight monitored in real time by IBM computers at Goddard Space Flight Center and Cape Canaveral. IBM had supported every phase of Project Mercury with tracking and computing systems and would go on to provide critical computing infrastructure for every subsequent manned NASA program through the Space Shuttle era.

  May 05, 1961

• EDSAC Performs First Practical Stored-Program Calculation at Cambridge University

  On May 6, 1949, the Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator (EDSAC) at Cambridge University ran its first practical stored-program calculation, becoming the world's first practical stored-program computer to run actual scientific computations. Designed and built by Maurice Wilkes and his team, EDSAC used mercury delay line memory and demonstrated that the stored-program concept could be made to work reliably for real scientific work.

  May 06, 1949

• Otto Steiger Receives Swiss Patent for the Millionaire Direct-Multiplication Calculator

  On May 7, 1895, Swiss engineer Otto Steiger received a patent for the Millionaire calculating machine, the first commercially successful mechanical calculator capable of performing direct multiplication without repeated addition. Manufactured from 1893 to 1935 by Hans W. Egli of Zurich, the Millionaire became the dominant high-end mechanical calculator used by governments, insurance companies, and scientific institutions for decades.

  May 07, 1895

• Sun Microsystems Completes Release of Java Virtual Machine Source Code Under GNU GPL

  On May 8, 2007, Sun Microsystems completed the open-source release of its Java Virtual Machine core code under the GNU General Public License, fulfilling a commitment made in November 2006 to free Java from proprietary control. This decision made Java one of the most significant open-source platforms in computing history and helped ensure the long-term independence and portability of the Java ecosystem after Sun's acquisition by Oracle in 2010.

  May 08, 2007

• HMS Bulldog Captures German U-110 with Enigma Machine and Codebooks Intact

  On May 9, 1941, the crew of HMS Bulldog boarded the disabled German submarine U-110 in the North Atlantic, recovering an intact Enigma cipher machine along with current key settings and codebooks. The captured material was rushed to codebreakers at Bletchley Park, where it proved decisive in enabling regular decryption of German naval Enigma traffic and helping the Allies redirect convoys away from U-boat wolf packs in the Battle of the Atlantic.

  May 09, 1941

• Texas Instruments Announces First Commercial Silicon Transistor, Expanding Computing Potential

  On May 10, 1954, Texas Instruments announced the first commercial silicon transistor, developed by Gordon Teal, marking a significant advance over germanium transistors because silicon devices could operate reliably at much higher temperatures. This breakthrough made transistors practical for military and industrial computing applications and laid the groundwork for the silicon semiconductor industry that would drive all subsequent computer development.

  May 10, 1954

• VisiCalc Electronic Spreadsheet Receives Its First Public Demonstration in Boston

  On May 11, 1979, Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston demonstrated VisiCalc - the world's first electronic spreadsheet - publicly at a conference in Boston, having originally conceived it to automate the financial modeling Bricklin did at Harvard Business School. VisiCalc transformed the Apple II from a hobbyist machine into a legitimate business tool and is widely credited with driving the first wave of mainstream personal computer adoption in business.

  May 11, 1979

• IBM Deep Blue Supercomputer Defeats World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov

  On May 11, 1997, IBM's Deep Blue supercomputer defeated reigning world chess champion Garry Kasparov in the final game of a six-game rematch, winning 3.5-2.5 and marking the first time a reigning world champion had been defeated by a computer under standard tournament conditions. Deep Blue evaluated up to 200 million chess positions per second using 30 custom-designed chess chips and represented a landmark in the application of parallel computing and heuristic search to artificial intelligence.

  May 11, 1997

• Konrad Zuse Presents the Z3 - World's First Functional Programmable Digital Computer

  On May 12, 1941, Konrad Zuse publicly presented the Z3 to scientists in Berlin, demonstrating the world's first fully functional, programmable, electromechanical digital computer built from 2,600 telephone relays. The Z3 used binary floating-point arithmetic and read programs from punched film tape, proving the concept of stored-program computation years before similar systems appeared in Britain or the United States.

  May 12, 1941

• Florence Nightingale Born - Pioneered Statistical Data Visualization as a Computing Tool

  Florence Nightingale, born May 12, 1820, invented the polar area diagram (the "coxcomb" chart) to graphically display Crimean War mortality data, convincing the British Parliament to reform military hospital sanitation through the power of visual statistics. Her systematic use of statistical graphics to drive evidence-based decisions is recognized by data scientists and computing historians as a foundational milestone in information visualization - a discipline central to modern computing.

  May 12, 1820

• Skylab, America's First Space Station, Launches with IBM System/4Pi Onboard Computers

  On May 14, 1973, NASA launched Skylab aboard the last Saturn V rocket, carrying IBM System/4Pi TC-1 computers that controlled the station's attitude and pointing throughout three crewed missions totaling 171 days in orbit. The success of Skylab's Attitude and Pointing Control System directly influenced the design of the five IBM AP-101 computers that would later govern all critical functions of the Space Shuttle.

  May 14, 1973

• Theodore Maiman Demonstrates World's First Working Laser at Hughes Research Laboratories

  On May 16, 1960, physicist Theodore H. Maiman demonstrated the first functional laser at Hughes Research Laboratories in Malibu, California, using a synthetic ruby crystal and a flash lamp to produce a coherent beam of deep red light. The laser would go on to revolutionize computing through applications including CD and DVD data storage, laser printers, fiber-optic data transmission, and barcode readers.

  May 16, 1960

• Antikythera Mechanism Identified as Geared Computing Device at Athens Archaeological Museum

  On May 17, 1902, archaeologist Valerios Stais examining artifacts from a 1st-century BC Greek shipwreck noticed a corroded lump of bronze contained an embedded gear wheel - the first recognition that the object was a sophisticated mechanical device. Now understood as the world's oldest known analog computer, the Antikythera Mechanism used over 30 interlocking bronze gears to calculate and display the positions of the Sun, Moon, and planets with remarkable precision.

  May 17, 1902

• Apple Opens Its First Two Retail Stores, Pioneering Direct-to-Consumer Computer Retailing

  On May 19, 2001, Apple Inc. opened its first two retail stores simultaneously at Tysons Corner Center in McLean, Virginia and Glendale Galleria in Glendale, California, pioneering a new model of hands-on, direct-to-consumer technology retailing designed under Steve Jobs's close personal direction. The Apple Stores eventually became the highest-revenue retail stores per square foot in history and fundamentally changed how computing products are sold and experienced by consumers.

  May 19, 2001

• Hubble Space Telescope Captures First Light Observations Using Onboard Digital Imaging Systems

  On May 20, 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope captured its first light observations, recording a double star cluster in the constellation Carina through the Wide Field and Planetary Camera's CCD digital imaging sensors. Although a subsequent mirror flaw was discovered, Hubble's digital imaging and data transmission systems would revolutionize astronomy, with all observations processed, analyzed, and distributed to scientists worldwide via computer networks.

  May 20, 1990

• eBay Discloses Massive Cyberattack Affecting 145 Million User Accounts

  On May 21, 2014, eBay Inc. publicly disclosed that a cyberattack had compromised a database containing encrypted passwords and personal information for approximately 145 million registered users, urging all users to change their passwords immediately. The breach, which occurred between late February and early March 2014, was among the largest credential database compromises in internet commerce history and triggered new scrutiny of enterprise database security practices.

  May 21, 2014

• Robert Metcalfe Circulates Ethernet Memo at Xerox PARC, Naming the Networking Technology

  On May 22, 1973, Xerox PARC researcher Robert Metcalfe circulated a memorandum proposing a networked system he called "The Ether Network" - coining the name Ethernet - to connect Alto workstations via a shared coaxial cable using a random-access protocol inspired by the University of Hawaii's ALOHAnet radio system. This document is recognized as the founding document of Ethernet, which became the dominant global standard for wired local area networking and now connects billions of devices worldwide.

  May 22, 1973

• Pac-Man Debuts in Japan, Powered by a Zilog Z-80 Microprocessor, Transforming Gaming

  On May 22, 1980, Namco released Pac-Man in Japan - powered by a Zilog Z-80 microprocessor running custom TTL display circuits - and it quickly became the best-selling arcade game ever made and a global cultural phenomenon. Pac-Man demonstrated that microprocessor-based gaming systems could generate unprecedented commercial returns, driving the dedicated gaming hardware and software industry that in turn accelerated microprocessor development throughout the 1980s.

  May 22, 1980

• Microsoft Launches Windows 3.0, the First Commercially Successful Version of Windows

  On May 22, 1990, Microsoft officially released Windows 3.0 at a lavish product launch at New York City's City Center Theater attended by over 6,000 industry professionals, marking the first version of Windows to achieve widespread commercial success with more than 10 million copies sold in its first two years. Windows 3.0 leveraged the Intel 80386's protected memory mode and established the Program Manager and File Manager GUI paradigm that would define personal computing for most of the following decade.

  May 22, 1990

• Sun Microsystems Announces Java Programming Language at SunWorld Conference

  On May 23, 1995, Sun Microsystems engineer James Gosling and science director John Gage announced the Java programming language at the SunWorld conference in San Francisco, simultaneously revealing that Netscape Navigator would incorporate Java to run interactive programs inside web browsers. Java's "Write Once, Run Anywhere" philosophy - enabled by the platform-independent Java Virtual Machine - made it one of the most widely deployed programming languages in history, now powering billions of devices from enterprise servers to Android smartphones.

  May 23, 1995

• Samuel Morse Transmits First Official Telegraph Message: What Hath God Wrought

  On May 24, 1844, Samuel F.B. Morse transmitted the first official long-distance telegraph message - "What hath God wrought" (from Numbers 23:23, suggested by Annie Ellsworth) - from the US Capitol in Washington, D.C. to Alfred Vail in Baltimore, Maryland, over a 38-mile experimental line funded by Congress. This moment inaugurated the era of near-instantaneous electrical communication and laid the conceptual and infrastructural groundwork for all subsequent digital and data communications networks.

  May 24, 1844

• President Kennedy Commits US to Moon Mission, Launching the Apollo Computing Era

  On May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy addressed a joint session of Congress and committed the United States to landing a man on the Moon before the end of the decade, a goal requiring entirely new computing capabilities including real-time digital flight control, mission planning software, and miniaturized guidance computers. The Apollo Guidance Computer, developed at MIT's Instrumentation Laboratory, became one of the most influential milestones in the history of embedded computing.

  May 25, 1961

• Star Wars Opens in Theaters; ILM Computer-Controlled Cameras Transform Visual Effects

  On May 25, 1977, Star Wars opened in 32 theaters across the United States featuring groundbreaking effects by Industrial Light and Magic that relied on the Dykstraflex - a computer-controlled motion control camera system using TTL logic circuits to record and precisely repeat camera moves around miniature models. The film's extraordinary success demonstrated that computer-assisted cinematography could create convincing artificial worlds and directly drove advances in digital effects, computer animation, and computational imaging.

  May 25, 1977

• George Lucas Founds Industrial Light and Magic, Pioneering Computer-Controlled Visual Effects

  On May 26, 1975, George Lucas founded Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) in Van Nuys, California specifically to produce the special effects for Star Wars, creating the studio that would go on to pioneer digital compositing, CGI characters, motion capture, and virtually every major advance in visual computing technology over the following five decades. ILM alumni co-founded or influenced Pixar, PDI, and numerous other computer graphics companies that collectively transformed the computing and entertainment industries.

  May 26, 1975

• Royal Navy Sinks Bismarck After Bletchley Park Decrypts German Naval Enigma Signals

  On May 27, 1941, the British Royal Navy sank the German battleship Bismarck after codebreakers at Bletchley Park - using Alan Turing's electromechanical Bombe machines - decrypted Enigma-encrypted signals revealing the Bismarck was headed to Brest, France, enabling the Royal Navy to intercept it. This was one of the first major operational victories directly enabled by computing machinery, and it demonstrated the decisive military value of automated cryptanalysis.

  May 27, 1941

• Surveyor 1 Launched - First US Spacecraft to Soft-Land on the Moon Using Digital Guidance

  On May 30, 1966, NASA launched Surveyor 1, the first US spacecraft to successfully soft-land on the Moon, guided by onboard digital computing systems that autonomously controlled descent and landing without real-time human intervention from Earth. Surveyor 1 transmitted over 11,000 images from the lunar surface and demonstrated that digital computer-controlled autonomous guidance was reliable enough for precision planetary landing - a capability essential to the Apollo missions that followed.

  May 30, 1966