Scott Allsop's Blog, page 57

10th November 1983: Bill Gates announces the Microsoft Windows graphical user interface for PCs

Bill Gates publicly announced Windows 1.0 on November 10, 1983, at a reception in New York ...

9th November 1979: A computer error at NORAD reports that the USSR had fired hundreds of nuclear missiles at the USA

When news of the incident reached the Soviet Union, party leader Leonid Brezhnev wrote to Carter condemning the ‘tremendous danger’ caused by the ...

8th November 1861: The Trent Affair nearly causes a war between Britain and the United States

When news of the interception of a neutral ship reached Britain at the end of November, the government responded ...

7th November 1919: Palmer Raids in the United States result in the arrest of thousands of suspected communists and anarchists

The raids were ruthless in their execution and consisted of numerous warrantless searches and arrests across 12 cities, often targeting immigrants and prominent leftist ...

6th November 1869: First intercollegiate American football match played between Rutgers College and the College of New Jersey

Despite the absence of regulation and structured plays, the match turned out to be fiercely competitive. While the scoring was different from modern football, Rutgers won ...

5th November 1925: Sidney Reilly, the ‘Ace of Spies’, executed in the Soviet Union

The circumstances of Sidney Reilly's execution and the location of his remains have remained a mystery although it is known he was ensnared in an elaborate counter-espionage deception by the ...

4th November 1890: City and South London Railway, the world’s first deep-level underground ‘tube’ railway, officially opened

The construction of the railway presented numerous engineering challenges including the need to tunnel under the River Thames, but it was achieved using the ‘Greathead Shield’ which allowed workers to dig and line the tunnel ...

3rd November 1868: John Willis Menard became the first African-American to be elected to Congress

Running against Caleb S. Hunt, Menard secured approximately 64 percent of the vote, and on 3 November 1868 became the first African-American person to be elected to the United States ...

2nd November 1988: Release of the Morris Worm signalled the first major internet security attack

By the time the Morris Worm attack was brought under control over the next few days, between 2,000 and 6,000 major systems had been ...

1st November 1765: The Stamp Act went into force in the Thirteen Colonies

The Stamp Act levied a direct tax on American colonists without ...