In 1991, a young computer science student named Linus Torvalds announced that he was working on a computer operating system as "a hobby". Thirty years later, the Linux operating system is used worldwide and affects the daily lives of nearly everyone.
Posts tagged as “history”
In today's news roundup, last month's earthquake in Haiti delays the opening of school, the world remembers the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and 1970s pop supergroup ABBA records a new album.
The United States government acted quickly last week to create a new national holiday, Juneteenth. The name combines the words "June" and "nineteenth". It marks the day in 1865 that slaves in Texas were told that they were free.
Last Saturday night, the streets of Cairo, Egypt were brightly lit with a very unusual celebration - a parade of mummies. Over 20 kings and queens of ancient Egypt were being moved to their new home in a new museum.
March 11, 2011 was a terrible day for Japan. Natural disasters led to a man-made disaster that the country is still dealing with. Today marks 10 years since a tsunami triggered the world's worst nuclear disaster since 1986.
Long ago, letters were folded in complicated ways to prevent others from reading them. Now, a group of scientists at MIT have managed to read one of these letters without even opening it.
In today's news roundup, scientists discover the world's oldest cave painting in Indonesia, Italian police find a 500-year-old painting hidden in an apartment closet, and an original cover drawing for a Tintin comic book sells for $3.2 million.
Archaeologists in Italy are learning more and more about the everyday life of the people who lived in Pompeii nearly 2,000 years ago. Most recently, they've carefully uncovered a well-preserved street snack bar.
On Tuesday, Nepal and China announced a new height for the world's tallest mountain, Mount Everest. After years of disagreeing on the mountain's height, both sides have measured again - and discovered that it's taller than anyone thought.
In today's news roundup, police in India fight off farmers protesting over new laws, people around the world mourn soccer great Diego Maradona, and two valuable historic notebooks that belonged to Charles Darwin may have been stolen.
A group of second-year college students have discovered hidden writing on a page from a book from the 1500s. The students found the hidden writing using a special camera system they built.