Never before in the history of the technology industry has there been anything to equal the massive publicity generated by the launch of Microsoft Corp’s Windows 95 operating system. Microsoft and its billionaire Chairman Bill Gates provide the operating system for some 80 per cent of the personal computers sold today, and the company’s latest model is by all accounts a significant upgrade to the current version of Windows used on 100 million computers worldwide. Analysts project that over the coming year Microsoft will sell 20 million copies of the $90 programme to existing users, bringing about $1 billion in revenue to the company. Including tens of millions of copies that will be pre-installed on new computers and dozens of upgraded programmes designed to take advantage of the operating system’s new speed and features, Windows 95 will mean $7 billion in revenue to Microsoft alone in the next two years, analysts say.
Other important events
1909 The first concrete is poured for the Panama Canal.
1950 Edith Sampson becomes the first black US delegate to the United Nations.
1954 President Getulio Vargas of Brazil kills himself with a gunshot to the heart.
1963 American swimmer Don Schollander becomes the first man to swim the 200-metre freestyle in less than two minutes.
1965 The United Arab Republic and Yemen sign a ceasefire agreement.
1964 Fireworks explosion in Atlatahuca, Mexico, during religious celebration kills 45 people and injures 33.
1965 United Arab Republic and Yemen sign cease-fire agreement.
1968 France becomes the world’s fifth thermonuclear power after it successfully tests a hydrogen bomb.
1973 The United States agrees to reduce its armed forces in Thailand.
1976 Two Soviet cosmonauts return to Earth after 48 days in orbit in the space laboratory.
1985 The pilot of a Chinese military aircraft crash lands his plane in South Korea and asks for political asylum in Taiwan.
1989 Solidarity journalist Tadeusz Mazowiecki officially becomes Poland’s prime minister.
1990 Irish hostage Brian Keenan is freed by Lebanese kidnappers after 52 months of captivity.
1992 China and South Korea sign a pact opening diplomatic relations, punching through one of the last Cold War barriers in Asia.
1995 China expels US human rights activist Harry Wu, just hours after he was sentenced to 15 years in jail for spying
1999 At least 100,000 public workers march in cities around South Africa, in the largest mass labor action since apartheid ended, to demand wage increases.
2000 Rev. John Kaiser, an outspoken American priest critical of the Kenyan government’s human rights record, is found dead in western Kenya.
2004 Chechen suicide bombers destroy two Russian airliners, killing 90 passengers and crew.
2006 Pluto is demoted to a ‘dwarf planet’.
2008 An Iran-bound passenger jet carrying 90 people crashes near Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, killing at least 65 people.
2011 Apple co-founder Steve Jobs resigns from his CEO post and hands the reins to Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook.
2012 US anti-doping agency strips Lance Armstrong of his record seven Tour de France titles and slaps the cyclist with a lifetime ban.
2014 Hollywood actor and director Richard Attenborough dies at the age of 90.
