What Happened Today, March 20th

Edmund Berkeley, founder of the Association of Computing Machinery, is born. A graduate of Harvard University, Berkeley participated in the development of Harvard's Mark II while enlisted in the Navy during World War II. In addition to co-founding the ACM in 1947, he wrote one of the first books on computers intended for a general audience, Giant Brains, or Machines that Think.

Aldus Corporation and Adobe Systems Inc. announce they will merge. Aldus revolutionized desktop publishing (DTP) when founder Paul Brainerd released the PageMaker program in 1985. Computer scientists John Warnock and Charles Geschke applied knowledge learned in their graduate work to similar products and founded Adobe in 1982.

The National Science Foundation announces it will extend its network with a high-speed data link to Europe. Five years earlier, the Internet in its modern form had started to develop rapidly thanks to the formation of the NSFNET, which linked five supercomputer centers in the United States. Later in 1990, Europe contributed to the growth of the Internet when CERN's Tim Berners-Lee developed HTML, the language used for the World Wide Web.

Apple Computer sues Microsoft for copyright infringement over the graphical user interface (GUI) of its operating system. After Apple developed the highly successful Macintosh GUI in 1984, Microsoft released their Windows operating system, which had some similarities in its GUI’s look and feel. Under terms of a confidential agreement signed between the two companies in 1985, Microsoft consented to acknowledging that their GUI was derived from that of the Macintosh. In return, Apple gave Microsoft license to use the design in its software. A judge eventually decided Apple had only limited rights to the design.

The New York Times reports that a 17-year-old student in New Jersey had tracked the launch of the new Soviet space station, Mir, before the Soviet government formally announced it. With a group of friends, Phillip Naranjo tracked transmissions between space vessels and control centers on Earth. Just before the Russians announced Mir on February 20, the teens had picked up some Cyrillic code.

Edmund Berkeley, founder of the Association of Computing Machinery, is born. A graduate of Harvard University, Berkeley participated in the development of Harvard's Mark II while enlisted in the Navy during World War II. In addition to co-founding the ACM in 1947, he wrote one of the first books on computers intended for a general audience, Giant Brains, or Machines that Think.

The origins of Twitter came out of a brainstorming session at the podcasting company Odeo. The initial concept was to share short messages via SMS text messaging with a small group. Jack Dorsey was the primary designer of what was then code-named “twttr” and sent the first message at 9:50am on March 21st, 2006 - "just setting up my twttr." Twitter would be released to the public that July and found its first major success at the South by Southwest Interactive conference in 2007, shortly after it had been spun-off as its own company, Twitter, Inc.