What Happened on January 3rd

Apple Computer, Inc. is incorporated by Steven Jobs and Stephen Wozniak. Its IPO, which took place three years later, was the largest one since the Ford Motor Company went public in 1956. The stock rose almost 32% that day giving the company a market valuation of $1.778 billion. Seven years later, on January 24, 1984, the company revealed the Macintosh personal computer in a publicity campaign that compared IBM with Big Brother and Apple as the savior of the masses.

Time magazine alters its annual tradition of naming a "Man of the Year," choosing instead to name the computer its "Machine of the Year." In introducing the theme, Time publisher John A. Meyers wrote: "Several human candidates might have represented 1982, but none symbolized the past year more richly, or will be viewed by history as more significant, than a machine: the computer."