In early June 1978 - we have not been able to determine the exact date - the famous arcade video game Space Invaders designed by Tomohiro Nishikado was released by the Japanese Taito Corporation. Space Invaders is one of the earliest shooting games and the aim is to defeat waves of attacking aliens with a laser cannon
On June 15, 1475, Pope Sixtus IV issued the papal bull 'Ad decorem militantis Ecclesiae' in which he regulated the complex structure of the newly founded Vatican Apostolic Library and appointed Renaissance author Bartolomeo Platina as its first head librarian.
On July 15, 1848, Italian engineer, sociologist, economist, political scientist and philosopher Vilfredo Federico Damaso Pareto was born. He made several important contributions to economics, particularly in the study of income distribution and in the analysis of individuals' choices. The Pareto principle was named after him and built on observations of his such as that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population.
On July 11, 1382, significant philosopher of the later Middle Ages Nicole Oresme passed away. As for many historic people of the middle ages, his actual birthdate is unknown and can only be fixed to a period between 1325 and 1330. Nicole Oresme besides William of Ockham or Jean Buridan -- a French priest who sowed the seeds of the Copernican revolution in Europe -- is considered as one of the most influential thinkers of the 14th century and he wrote influential works on economics, mathematics, physics, astrology and astronomy, philosophy, and theology.
On July 1, 1742, German scientist, satirist and Anglophile Georg Christoph Lichtenberg was born. He is remembered best for his posthumously published notebooks, which he himself called Sudelbücher, a description modeled on the English bookkeeping term "scrapbooks", and his aphorisms.
On July 17, 1995, the Global Positioning System (GPS), the world's first space-based satellite navigation system is declared operational. GPS provides location and time information in all weather conditions, anywhere on or near the Earth where there is an unobstructed line of sight to four or more GPS satellites.
On 5 July 1841, British pioneer of organized tourism Thomas Cook arranged to take a group of 540 temperance campaigners from Leicester Campbell Street station to a rally in Loughborough, eleven miles away. This led him to start his own business founding the world's first and most famous travel agency.
On July 4, 1840, the RMS Britannia started her maiden voyage to Halifax, Nova Scotia from Liverpool, England. With the ocean liner of the British and North American Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, later known as Cunard Steamship Company, the first regularly operating transatlantic postal service between Europe and America was established.
On July 19, 64 AD, the Great Fire of Rome (Latin: Magnum Incendium Romae) occurred and continued burning until July 26 during the reign of emperor Nero. According to the Roman historian Tacitus three of the 14 city districts were completely burned down, in seven districts only debris and rubble was left from the former buildings, and only 4 districts were not affected.
On August 15, 1785, the Cardinal de Rohan was arrested and the 'Affair of the Diamond Necklace', an extraordinary expensive piece of jewelry intended for Madame du Barry, the maitresse of King Louis XV of France, became a public scandal that led to the French populace's disillusionment with the monarchy, which, among other causes, eventually culminated in the French Revolution.
On August 12, 30BC, ancient Egyptian pharao Cleopatra VII Philopator, known to history simply as Cleopatra, passed away under myserious circumstances. After Caesar's assassination in 44 BC, she aligned with Mark Antony in opposition to Caesar's legal heir, Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus (later known as Augustus). To this day, Cleopatra remains a popular figure in Western culture. Her legacy survives in numerous works of art and the many dramatizations of her story in literature and film.
On August 18, 1960, the first contraceptive pill Enovid went on public sale in the U.S. But the contraceptive pill was not available to married women in all states of the U.S. until 1972. Especially the Roman Catholic Church holds a strong position against the contraceptive pill, because according to her teachings artificial contraception distorts the nature and purpose of sex. According to the Economist, the contraceptive pill was one of the inventions that decisively shaped the 20th century.
J. Waitelonis, und H. Sack. Proceedings of the 4th IEEE International Conference on Semantic Computing (ICSC), September 22-24, 2010, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA, Seite 446--447. IEEE Computer Society, (2010)