In June 2001, servers went online capable of accommodating thousands of players across a massive scale map of Europe, either on foot, in vehicles or in the air, making WWII Online: Blitzkrieg the first massively multiplayer online war game. Guinness World Records Gamers’ Edition 2009.
In January 2009, graduate students and mathematicians from Carleton University, Ottawa, and the University of Ottawa, Canada, published the first mathematical investigation of the zombie – “a reanimated human corpse that feeds on living flesh”. Taking their cues from traditional zombie movies, and in particular the classics by George A Romero (USA), the authors Philip Munz, Ioan Hudea, Joe Imad and Robert J. Smith (all Canada) hypothesized the effect of a zombie attack and its impact on human civilization. According to their mathematical model, “a
Continue reading →
Released in May 2008, Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures was rated M for mature by the Entertainment Software Board in the USA and rated 18 by the Pan European Game Information System. Running from 2004 to 2007, the Japanese game A3 was the first MMORPG with an adult rating. Guinness World Records Gamers’ Edition 2009.
The earliest mechanical clock, i.e. one with an escapement, was completed in China in AD 725 by Yi Xing and Liang Lingzan. Information from Archives (e.e. 1994). Submitted for use in Scholastic’s Modern Marvels.
Neil Alden Armstrong (b. Wapakoneta, Ohio, USA of Scottish [via Ireland] and German ancestry, on 5 Aug 1930), commander of the Apollo 11 mission, became the first man to set foot on the Moon, on the Sea of Tranquillity, at 02:56 and 15sec GMT on 21 Jul 1969 (22:56 and 15sec EDT-Eastern Daylight Time-on 20 Jul 1969). He was followed out of the lunar module Eagle by Col. Edwin Eugene `Buzz’ Aldrin, Jr, USAF (b. Montclair, New Jersey, USA of Swedish, Dutch and British ancestry,
Continue reading →
In July 1997, Professor Charles Fisher led a team of scientists from Pennsylvania State University, Pennsylvania, USA in a mini-submarine down 548 m (1,800 ft) to the Gulf of Mexico’s ocean floor. Here they observed mushroom-shaped mounds of yellow and white methane ice (gas hydrates), 1.8-2.4 m (6-8 ft) across. Until now, these mounds were assumed to be too noxious to support any form of animal life. However, Fisher’s team discovered large numbers of a hitherto unknown species of pink, flat-bodied polychaete worm thriving upon
Continue reading →
Dolly Shepherd (1886-1983) brought down Louie May on her single ‘chute having jumped from a balloon at 3352 m (11,000 ft) over Longton, Staffordshire, UK on 9 June 1908. Both girls were part of a performing troupe, who jumped out of a balloon with parachutes. On this day, May’s ripcord jammed and so Shepherd brought the both of them down with one chute.
The first CD to sell a million copies world-wide was Dire Straits’ Brother in Arms in 1986. It subsequently topped a million sales in Europe alone, including over 250,000 in Britain.
The Boston Red Sox (USA) set a Major League Baseball (MLB) record with 500 consecutive regular-season sellout crowds at Fenway Park between 16 June 2009 and 15 May 2009.
NASA’s Dawn spacecraft was launched on 27 September 2007. Its goal is to reach the asteroid Vesta, study it from orbit and then break orbit and rendezvous with Ceres, the largest member of the asteroid belt. Ceres, like Pluto, was reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006. Dawn will reach Ceres in February 2015, five months before the New Horizons spacecraft reaches Pluto.