Events, Verisoph

27 January 1967 Outer Space Treaty 0 cit. Treaty barring national appropriation of outer space and celestial bodies and banning nuclear weapons in orbit. It remains the basic law of space activity. diplomacy / politics / science / technology ●●●

14 July 1967 Founding of the World Intellectual Property Organization 0 cit. The WIPO Convention is signed in Stockholm, creating a Geneva-based organization to administer international patent, trademark and copyright treaties. It became a UN specialized agency in 1974. diplomacy / economy / technology ●●

27 June 1967 The first ATM 0 cit. Barclays installed the first automated teller machine, letting customers withdraw cash without a bank teller. The machine began the shift toward self-service banking. economy / technology ●●●

27 January 1967 Apollo 1 fire 0 cit. A flash fire swept through the Apollo 1 capsule during a ground test, killing astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee. The disaster forced a major redesign of the spacecraft. society / technology ●●●●

9 November 1967 First flight of the Saturn V 0 cit. NASA launched the uncrewed Apollo 4 mission on the first flight of the giant Saturn V rocket. The booster, designed by von Braun's team, remained the most powerful rocket to carry people for decades. science / technology ●●●●

1967 Von Braun builds the Saturn V Moon rocket 1 cit. As director of NASA's Marshall Center, von Braun leads the design of the Saturn V, the giant rocket that would carry astronauts to the Moon. The line ran unbroken from Hitler's vengeance weapon to the Apollo program. science / technology ●●●●

27 April 1967 Expo 67 0 cit. Staged for Canada's centennial, this fair is considered one of the most successful world's fairs of the 20th century, drawing over 50 million visitors. It featured Buckminster Fuller's geodesic dome as the United States pavilion and Moshe Safdie's experimental Habitat 67 housing complex. culture / technology ●●

December 1967 Katz v. United States protects private conversation 0 cit. The Supreme Court reversed course from Olmstead, ruling that the Fourth Amendment protects people, not places. Because a man in a phone booth had a reasonable expectation of privacy, bugging it required a warrant. The decision made electronic eavesdropping a search that the government had to justify. politics / technology ●●

18 July 1968 Founding of Intel 0 cit. Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore leave Fairchild to found Intel. It launches the first commercial microprocessor in 1971 and its chips power the personal computer revolution. economy / technology ●●●●

11 October 1968 Apollo 7, first crewed Apollo mission 0 cit. After the Apollo 1 fire, Apollo 7 carried a crew into Earth orbit to test the redesigned command module. Its success put the Moon program back on track. exploration / technology ●●●

21 December 1968 Apollo 8 orbits the Moon 0 cit. Apollo 8 carried the first humans to leave Earth's orbit and circle the Moon. The crew's live broadcasts and the Earthrise photograph became lasting images of the era. culture / exploration / technology ●●●●

9 December 1968 Engelbart's Mother of All Demos 0 cit. Douglas Engelbart, working on ARPA and NASA money, demonstrated the computer mouse, windows, hypertext, and video conferencing decades before they reached the public. The event became known as the Mother of All Demos and previewed how people would use computers for the rest of the century. culture / science / technology ●●●

1968 Sutton documents the scale of Western technology transfer 0 cit. In his three-volume academic study Western Technology and Soviet Economic Development, published by the Hoover Institution, Antony Sutton catalogued how heavily Soviet industry depended on imported Western designs, equipment, and engineers. This scholarly work is a respected record of the transfers themselves. His later, more sweeping conclusions about intent are separate and more contested. economy / society / technology ●●●

13 January 1969 Founding of Samsung Electronics 0 cit. Samsung founds its electronics arm in Suwon, initially making televisions. It becomes the world's largest maker of memory chips and smartphones and the core of the Samsung group. economy / technology ●●●●

20 July 1969 Apollo 11 Moon landing 1 cit. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walk on the Moon while hundreds of millions watch on television. Humanity reaches another world for the first time, the defining triumph of the space age. exploration / technology ●●●●

29 October 1969 First ARPANET Connection 0 cit. A UCLA computer sends the first message over the ARPANET to Stanford Research Institute, crashing after the letters L and O. The Pentagon-funded network grows into the Internet, the most consequential spinoff of American defense research. science / technology ●●●

29 October 1969 ARPANET 0 cit. The first message was sent between computers on ARPANET, a packet switched network funded by the US military. ARPANET was the direct ancestor of the internet. technology ●●●●●

20 July 1969 Apollo 11 lands on the Moon 0 cit. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first people to walk on the Moon while Michael Collins orbited above. An estimated 600 million people watched the landing on television. culture / exploration / technology ●●●●●

19 November 1969 Apollo 12, second crewed lunar landing 0 cit. Apollo 12 made a precise landing near an earlier robotic probe on the Moon. The mission showed that lunar landings could be routine and accurate. exploration / technology ●●

20 July 1969 The Nazi rocketeer's rocket reaches the Moon 1 cit. Apollo 11 lands on the Moon atop von Braun's Saturn V, the culmination of a career that began with Hitler's missiles. One of the twentieth century's greatest achievements rested on one of its darkest bargains. science / technology ●●●●

July 1969 The N1 rocket fails and the Soviet Moon dream dies 0 cit. The giant Soviet N1 Moon rocket fails repeatedly, and after the death of chief designer Korolev the Soviet manned lunar program quietly collapses. The failure of the N1 is why the United States, not the USSR, reached the Moon. politics / technology ●●●

c. 1969 The data-broker industry 0 cit. A company that would become Acxiom began compiling and selling information about consumers, an early node in what grew into a multibillion-dollar data-broker industry. These firms assemble dossiers on nearly every adult from public records, purchases, and online activity, then sell them to marketers and others. A 2014 Federal Trade Commission report found the trade operated with almost no transparency to the people it profiled. economy / society / technology ●●

c. 1970 San Francisco Bay Area as a finance and venture capital hub 0 cit. Long a West Coast banking center and birthplace of Bank of America, San Francisco becomes the capital of venture finance as Silicon Valley firms organize from the early 1970s. Technology wealth and fintech now place it in the top five of global financial center rankings. economy / technology ●●●

18 December 1970 Founding of Airbus 0 cit. France and Germany form the Airbus consortium in Toulouse to build the A300 airliner. The European venture grows into Boeing's only rival in large commercial aircraft. economy / politics / technology ●●●

11 April 1970 Apollo 13 survival 0 cit. An oxygen tank exploded on the way to the Moon, and the crew used the lunar module as a lifeboat to get home. The safe return became a famous story of improvised engineering under pressure. exploration / society / technology ●●●●

15 March 1970 Expo 70 0 cit. The first world's fair held in Asia showcased Japan's postwar economic recovery under the theme "Progress and Harmony for Mankind," centered on Taro Okamoto's Tower of the Sun sculpture. It drew over 64 million visitors and displayed a piece of moon rock brought back by the Apollo 12 mission. culture / technology ●●

31 May 1970 FIFA World Cup 1970 in Mexico 0 cit. This was the first World Cup broadcast live in color to a global television audience, dramatically expanding the tournament's reach as a worldwide media spectacle. Brazil's team, led by Pele, is widely regarded as one of the greatest in football history, and the tournament helped cement the World Cup's status as a global mega-event comparable to the Olympics. culture / technology ●●

1971 The microprocessor 4 cit. Intel released the 4004, the first commercial microprocessor, putting a computer's processing on a single chip. Cheap microprocessors made personal computers, phones and countless devices possible. technology ●●●●●

April 1971 Salyut 1, the first space station 0 cit. The Soviet Union launches Salyut 1, the first space station, shifting the contest from the Moon to long-duration life in orbit. The USSR would lead in space stations for decades, culminating in Mir. science / technology ●●●

c. 1971 ECHELON signals interception network develops 0 cit. The NSA and its UKUSA intelligence partners, including the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, build out ECHELON, a global system for intercepting satellite and other communications traffic. Its existence was long denied before being confirmed in a 2000 European Parliament investigative report and subsequent official acknowledgments. diplomacy / technology ●●

26 May 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty 0 cit. US-Soviet treaty signed alongside SALT I, strictly limiting missile defense systems to preserve mutual deterrence. The United States withdrew from it in 2002. diplomacy / politics / technology / war ●●●

1 April 1972 Founding of SAP 0 cit. Five former IBM engineers found SAP in Germany to build standard business software. Its enterprise resource planning systems come to run the accounting and logistics of most large corporations. economy / technology ●●●

29 November 1972 Pong launches the video game industry 0 cit. Atari released Pong, a simple table tennis arcade game that became a hit. It turned video games into a real business and started the arcade boom. culture / technology ●●●●

7 December 1972 Apollo 17, the last Moon landing 0 cit. Apollo 17 was the final crewed mission to the Moon and the only one to carry a trained geologist. No human has returned to the lunar surface since. exploration / science / technology ●●●●

1972 Apollo Tyres is named for the god Apollo 0 cit. The Indian tire manufacturer, founded in 1972, is named after Apollo, the Greek and Roman god of the sun, light, and strength. economy / religion / technology ●●

3 April 1973 The handheld mobile phone 0 cit. Martin Cooper of Motorola made the first public call from a handheld cellular phone, the DynaTAC prototype. The first consumer model reached the market in 1983 and mobile phones went on to reach most of humanity. technology ●●●●

1973 The founding of SWIFT 0 cit. Banks created SWIFT, a shared messaging network for sending secure instructions about international payments. It became the backbone of cross-border money transfers between banks. economy / technology ●●●

14 May 1973 Skylab, America's first space station 0 cit. NASA launched Skylab, its first space station, built from leftover Apollo hardware. Three crews lived aboard and studied the Sun, the Earth, and how the body copes with long stays in space. exploration / science / technology ●●●

c. 1973 GPS grows out of Pentagon navigation research 0 cit. The Global Positioning System was built by the US Department of Defense, approved in 1973 and drawing on earlier military satellite navigation work. Meant to guide missiles, ships, and troops, it was later opened to civilians and became the invisible utility behind maps, ride-hailing, and much of the digital economy. science / technology / war ●●

May 1973 SWIFT builds the plumbing of global payments 0 cit. Banks from Europe and North America found SWIFT, a cooperative to carry standardized payment messages between institutions worldwide. Over time it became the backbone of cross-border transfers. Because so much of that traffic clears in dollars through US-linked banks, control over access to this network would later become a tool of American policy. economy / technology ●●

14 May 1973 Skylab, America's first space station, reaches orbit damaged 0 cit. NASA launches Skylab, the first American space station, on the last flight of a Saturn V rocket. During ascent the micrometeoroid and thermal shield tore away, ripping off one main solar wing and jamming the other, which left the station overheating and short of power. The orbital workshop reached orbit but could not be occupied until it was repaired. exploration / science / technology ●●●

25 May 1973 Skylab's first crew saves the crippled station 0 cit. Astronauts Charles Conrad, Paul Weitz and Joseph Kerwin fly to Skylab and rescue it in orbit. They deployed a parasol sunshade to cool the overheated workshop and freed the jammed solar wing during a spacewalk, restoring power. The crew spent 28 days aboard, then a record for human spaceflight, proving that astronauts could repair large structures in space. exploration / science / technology ●●

16 November 1973 Skylab 4 crew sets an 84-day endurance record 0 cit. Gerald Carr, Edward Gibson and William Pogue launch on the third and final crewed Skylab mission. They stayed in orbit for 84 days, a human spaceflight duration record that stood for years, and studied the Sun and the newly found Comet Kohoutek. The mission also saw the crew push back against an overloaded schedule set by ground control. exploration / science / technology ●●

6 April 1973 Pioneer 11 launches toward Jupiter and Saturn 0 cit. NASA launches the Pioneer 11 probe on a mission to the outer planets. It would fly past Jupiter in 1974 and become the first spacecraft to reach Saturn, in 1979. Like its twin Pioneer 10, it carried a plaque meant to describe humanity to any future finder. exploration / science / technology ●●

3 November 1973 Mariner 10 launches on the first mission to Mercury 0 cit. NASA launches Mariner 10, bound for Venus and Mercury. It was the first spacecraft to use a gravity assist, swinging past Venus to reach Mercury, and the first to visit two planets on one mission. It returned the first close-up images of Mercury during three flybys in 1974 and 1975. exploration / science / technology ●●

3 December 1973 Pioneer 10 makes the first flyby of Jupiter 0 cit. Pioneer 10 becomes the first spacecraft to fly past Jupiter, passing about 130,000 kilometres above the cloud tops. It sent back the first close-up images of the giant planet and measured its intense radiation belts, proving a probe could survive them. The mission was run from NASA's Ames Research Center in California. exploration / science / technology ●●●

c. November 1973 Cohen and Boyer create the first recombinant DNA organism 0 cit. Stanley Cohen of Stanford and Herbert Boyer of the University of California, San Francisco report splicing genes from one organism into a bacterial plasmid that then replicated in E. coli. Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the work showed genes could be cut, joined and cloned at will. It launched genetic engineering and the biotechnology industry. science / technology ●●●

16 March 1973 Lauterbur produces the first magnetic resonance image 0 cit. Chemist Paul Lauterbur publishes in Nature the first image made with nuclear magnetic resonance, a technique he called zeugmatography. By adding magnetic field gradients he turned NMR signals into a spatial picture. The method became magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, and earned Lauterbur a share of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Medicine. science / technology ●●●

c. 1973 The EMI CT scanner enters clinical use worldwide 0 cit. Godfrey Hounsfield publishes his full description of computed tomography in the British Journal of Radiology, and the EMI head scanner begins spreading from its British birthplace to hospitals abroad. The first units reached the United States in 1973, including one at the Mayo Clinic. CT let doctors see cross-sections of the living brain for the first time, transforming diagnosis. science / society / technology ●●●

22 May 1973 Robert Metcalfe describes Ethernet at Xerox PARC 0 cit. Robert Metcalfe circulated a memo at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center laying out a scheme to link computers over a shared cable, which he named Ethernet. Working with David Boggs, he built the system to connect the lab's Alto workstations to a laser printer. Ethernet became the dominant standard for wired local area networks. science / technology ●●●

c. 1973 Cerf and Kahn design TCP for internetworking 0 cit. Vint Cerf and Robert Kahn worked out the Transmission Control Program, a way to join separate packet networks into one network of networks. The design let different networks pass data through common gateways without knowing each other's internals. This work became the foundation of the modern Internet's TCP/IP protocols. science / technology ●●●

3 April 1973 Martin Cooper places the first handheld mobile phone call 0 cit. Motorola engineer Martin Cooper stood on a Manhattan street and made the first public call from a handheld cellular phone, a prototype that weighed about a kilogram. He phoned Joel Engel, his rival at Bell Labs. The demonstration proved that personal, portable phones were possible. science / technology ●●●

4 April 1973 The World Trade Center towers open in New York 0 cit. The Twin Towers of the World Trade Center were dedicated in Lower Manhattan after years of construction. At 110 stories, the North Tower briefly ranked as the tallest building in the world. The complex, designed by Minoru Yamasaki, reshaped the city's skyline until its destruction in 2001. economy / technology ●●●

3 May 1973 The Sears Tower tops out as the world's tallest building 0 cit. Ironworkers bolted the final beam into place on the Sears Tower in Chicago, bringing it to 442 meters and 110 stories. It passed the World Trade Center to become the tallest building in the world. The tower, now called Willis Tower, held that record for nearly 25 years. economy / technology ●●●

c. 6 February 1973 Construction begins on the CN Tower in Toronto 0 cit. Work started on the CN Tower, a concrete communications and observation tower for the Canadian National Railway. Crews used a slip-form technique to pour the shaft continuously as it rose. On completion in 1976 it stood 553 meters tall and became the world's tallest free-standing structure. technology ●●

17 April 1973 Federal Express begins overnight package delivery 0 cit. Federal Express started service from a hub in Memphis, flying 186 packages to 25 cities on its first night. Founder Fred Smith built the company around a hub-and-spoke model that gathered parcels at one center for sorting and quick redistribution. FedEx turned reliable overnight delivery into a large industry. economy / technology ●●

30 October 1973 The Bosphorus Bridge opens linking Europe and Asia 0 cit. The Bosphorus Bridge opened in Istanbul, the first bridge to span the strait between the European and Asian sides of the city. The suspension bridge stretched over a kilometer across the water. Its opening on the 50th anniversary of the Turkish Republic joined the two continents by road for the first time. economy / technology ●●

c. March 1973 The Xerox Alto brings the graphical desktop to life 0 cit. Xerox PARC put its first Alto computer into operation, a machine built around a bitmapped screen, a mouse, and windows. It was among the earliest computers designed for one person to use with a graphical interface. The Alto's ideas later shaped the Apple Macintosh and modern personal computing. science / technology ●●

c. February 1973 France's Micral N ships as an early microcomputer 0 cit. The French firm R2E released the Micral N, a computer built around the Intel 8008 microprocessor and sold as a finished machine rather than a kit. It was first used to control processes such as highway toll systems. Many historians count it among the first commercial microcomputers. economy / technology ●●

c. 1973 Community Memory opens the first public computer bulletin board 0 cit. A group in Berkeley set up Community Memory, placing a computer terminal in a record store so ordinary people could post and read messages. It let strangers share notices, find rides, and trade goods through a shared database. It was one of the first attempts to use computers as a public communication network. society / technology ●

14 January 1973 Elvis Presley's Aloha from Hawaii airs by satellite 0 cit. Elvis Presley performed a concert at the Honolulu International Center that was broadcast live around the world by satellite. It was the first entertainment event carried live to a global audience this way. The show reached viewers in more than 40 countries. culture / technology ●●

10 February 1973 Fire and dome collapse kill workers at a Staten Island gas tank 0 cit. During repairs to an empty liquefied natural gas storage tank in Bloomfield, residual gas ignited and a fire raised pressure inside the structure. The concrete dome collapsed onto the crew working below. Reports said 40 workers were killed. The disaster hardened public opposition to LNG storage near cities. society / technology ●●

11 July 1973 Fire in a Rio-to-Paris Varig jet kills most aboard near Orly 0 cit. Varig Flight 820, a Boeing 707 flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, filled with smoke from a fire believed to have started in a lavatory. The crew made an emergency landing in a field short of Orly Airport. Reports said 123 of the 134 people on board died, most from smoke inhalation, with survivors mainly among the crew. society / technology ●●

2 August 1973 The Summerland leisure centre fire on the Isle of Man 0 cit. Fire tore through the Summerland leisure complex in Douglas while thousands of holidaymakers were inside. Flammable materials in the building's design let the blaze spread with deadly speed. Reports set the death toll at about 50 people. The disaster led to major changes in fire safety rules for public buildings. society / technology ●●●

4 April 1975 Founding of Microsoft 0 cit. Bill Gates and Paul Allen found Microsoft in Albuquerque to sell BASIC for the Altair microcomputer. Its MS-DOS and Windows operating systems come to run the vast majority of the world's personal computers. economy / technology ●●●●

17 November 1975 Iraq buys the Osirak reactor 0 cit. Iraq signs a contract with France for an Osiris-class research reactor and highly enriched uranium fuel. Saddam Hussein's interest in the deal feeds suspicion that Osirak is a step toward a bomb. politics / technology ●●

1975 The personal computer 0 cit. The Altair 8800 kit sparked the personal computer movement, followed by ready to use machines like the Apple II in 1977. Personal computers put computing power on ordinary desks and in homes. technology ●●●●

17 July 1975 Apollo-Soyuz handshake in orbit 0 cit. American and Soviet spacecraft docked in orbit and the crews shook hands, easing Cold War rivalry in space. The mission was the first international human spaceflight. exploration / politics / technology ●●●

c. 1975 DARPA seeds stealth technology 0 cit. In the mid-1970s DARPA funded a program to build aircraft that radar could barely see, work that led directly to the first stealth planes. The research turned an idea about deflecting radar into a weapon that reshaped air warfare. science / technology / war ●●

1975 Seeds law moves food security into certified seed 1 cit. The Seeds and Plant Varieties Act was assented to in 1972 and commenced in 1975, giving the state powers over seed testing, certification, variety lists and plant breeders rights. Food security was now also about who could certify seed, release varieties, control quality and define official planting material. economy / politics / technology ●●●

1 April 1976 Founding of Apple 0 cit. Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne found Apple to sell Wozniak's Apple I computer. The Macintosh, iPod, and iPhone later make Apple the most valuable company in the world. economy / technology ●●●●

c. July 1976 A.Q. Khan founds the Kahuta enrichment program 0 cit. Using centrifuge designs stolen from Europe, Abdul Qadeer Khan sets up Pakistan's uranium enrichment laboratories at Kahuta. The program, begun after India's 1974 test, becomes the core of Pakistan's bomb. technology / war ●●●

16 June 1977 Founding of Oracle 0 cit. Larry Ellison and partners found Software Development Laboratories, later Oracle, to build the first commercial SQL relational database. Oracle databases become the standard for corporate data. economy / technology ●●●

4 August 1977 Founding of the Department of Energy 0 cit. In the wake of the 1970s oil shocks, Carter signs the act merging energy agencies and the nuclear weapons complex into a cabinet department that opens on October 1, 1977. The department runs the national laboratories and the nuclear arsenal's production and stewardship. economy / technology ●●●

20 August 1977 Voyager 1 and 2 launched 3 cit. NASA launched two probes to tour the outer planets, returning close views of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Both later crossed into interstellar space, the most distant human-made objects. exploration / science / technology ●●●●

1977 Oracle is named for the prophetic oracle of Greek religion 0 cit. The software company, founded in California in 1977, is named for the oracle, a source of prophecy and truth in Greek religion, most famously the Oracle of Delphi. economy / religion / technology ●●●

1977 Kronos software is named for the Greek figure of time 0 cit. The workforce and timekeeping software firm, founded in Massachusetts in 1977, is named after Chronos, the personification of time in Greek myth, often rendered Kronos. economy / religion / technology ●●

1977 Have Blue and the secret F-117 stealth fighter 0 cit. Lockheed's Have Blue prototype proved that a strangely angled aircraft could be nearly invisible to radar, leading to the F-117 Nighthawk. The plane flew combat missions for years before the Air Force admitted it existed in 1988, a clear example of how far real black-project technology outran what the public knew. science / technology / war ●●

28 March 1979 Three Mile Island accident 0 cit. A cooling failure melts part of a reactor core near Harrisburg, the worst accident in American commercial nuclear power. Little radiation escapes, but public trust collapses and new plant orders dry up for decades. environment / technology ●●●●

1 July 1979 Sony launches the Walkman 0 cit. Sony's Walkman let people carry their own music and listen through headphones anywhere. It made music personal and portable for the first time. culture / technology ●●●

1 June 1980 CNN launches 24-hour news 1 cit. Ted Turner's Cable News Network began broadcasting on 1 June 1980 as the first around-the-clock television news channel. Continuous cable news changed the pace and expectations of news coverage. society / technology ●●●●

1 June 1980 CNN launches the 24-hour news cycle 0 cit. Cable News Network began round-the-clock television news, ending the era of fixed evening broadcasts. Continuous coverage changed how the public followed politics and war. culture / technology ●●●

2 July 1981 Founding of Infosys 0 cit. N.R. Narayana Murthy and six colleagues found Infosys with about 250 dollars of capital. It becomes a flagship of India's software outsourcing industry and a maker of middle-class wealth through employee stock. economy / technology ●●

12 April 1981 First Space Shuttle flight 0 cit. The Space Shuttle Columbia flew the program's first mission, the first reusable crewed spacecraft to reach orbit and glide back to a runway. It began three decades of shuttle flights. exploration / science / technology ●●●●

1981 Maruti is named for the Hindu deity Hanuman 0 cit. Maruti, India's carmaker whose modern entity was established in 1981, is named after Maruti, a traditional name for the Hindu deity Hanuman, the swift and mighty son of the wind god. economy / religion / technology ●●

1 October 1982 The compact disc reaches the market 0 cit. The compact disc brought digital sound to home listeners with no surface hiss. It soon replaced vinyl and cassettes as the main way people bought music. technology ●●●●

15 July 1983 Nintendo revives home gaming 0 cit. Nintendo launched the Famicom console, sold abroad as the NES, after a crash had gutted the game market. Quality controls and hits like Super Mario Bros. brought gaming back into the home. culture / technology ●●●

18 June 1983 Sally Ride, first American woman in space 0 cit. Sally Ride flew aboard the shuttle Challenger and became the first American woman in space. Her flight marked a shift in who could become an astronaut. culture / society / technology ●●●

March 1983 Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative 0 cit. President Reagan announces the Strategic Defense Initiative, a plan for a space-based missile shield nicknamed 'Star Wars'. The costly renewed arms race strained the Soviet economy in the Cold War's final phase. technology / war ●●●

1 January 1983 TCP/IP and the birth of the internet 0 cit. Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn designed the TCP/IP protocols in the 1970s under DARPA contracts, and on this day ARPANET switched over to them. That common language let separate networks join into one network of networks, which is what we now call the internet. science / society / technology ●●●

1 January 1984 Breakup of AT&T 0 cit. A federal antitrust settlement splits the Bell System, separating AT&T from seven regional phone companies. The breakup ends a century-long telephone monopoly and opens U.S. telecommunications to competition. economy / politics / technology ●●●●

1 April 1984 Founding of ASML 0 cit. Philips and ASM International spin off ASML in Veldhoven to build chip lithography machines. Its extreme ultraviolet machines later become the only tools capable of making the most advanced chips. economy / technology ●●●

10 December 1984 Founding of Cisco 0 cit. Leonard Bosack and Sandy Lerner of Stanford found Cisco Systems to sell multiprotocol routers. Its equipment carries much of the internet's traffic, and in 2000 it is briefly the world's most valuable company. economy / technology ●●●

1984 Titan watches are named for the elder gods of Greek myth 0 cit. Titan, the Indian watchmaker founded in 1984 as a Tata venture, is named after the Titans, the elder gods of Greek mythology. economy / religion / technology ●●

1985 The Saturn car brand traces to the Roman god Saturn 0 cit. General Motors created the Saturn car brand in 1985, naming it after the Saturn rockets and ultimately the planet, which carries the name of the Roman god of agriculture and time. economy / religion / technology ●●

c. 1985 From the B-1 bomber to the F-35 0 cit. A lineage of huge, long-running weapons programs runs from the B-1 bomber of the 1980s to the F-35 fighter, whose lifetime cost is estimated in the trillions of dollars. These flagship contracts, spread across many states and suppliers, show how a single program becomes an economic and political institution. technology / war ●●

26 April 1986 Chernobyl disaster 0 cit. Reactor 4 at the Chernobyl nuclear plant explodes, spreading radioactive fallout across Europe. The disaster discredits Soviet secrecy, energizes environmental movements, and stalls nuclear power for a generation. environment / technology ●●●●

c. 1986 Yongbyon reactor starts up 0 cit. North Korea's indigenous 5-megawatt gas-graphite reactor begins operating at Yongbyon. Its spent fuel becomes the source of the plutonium for the country's first bombs. technology / war ●●

28 January 1986 Challenger disaster 0 cit. The shuttle Challenger broke apart shortly after launch, killing all seven crew members including teacher Christa McAuliffe. A cold-damaged seal in a booster caused the failure and grounded the fleet for years. society / technology ●●●●●

25 September 1986 Stinger missiles delivered to the mujahideen 0 cit. The US began supplying shoulder-fired Stinger anti-aircraft missiles to Afghan fighters, blunting Soviet air power. Some missiles later went missing and worried Western agencies for years. technology / war ●●●