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This week in 1877 – Alexander Graham Bell installed the world’s first commercial telephone service in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
1948 – Columbia Records announced that it was offering a new Vinylite long-playing record that could hold 23 minutes of music on each side. At the time, the 10-inch 78 RPM records were selling at an all-time high. But it didn’t take long for the new 33-1/3 RPM album — and its 7-inch, 45 RPM cousin to revolutionize the music industry and the record buying habits of millions.
1995 – Microsoft and Netscape officials met at Netscape headquarters in Mountain View, California. Notes taken by Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen indicated that
Microsoft offered to buy a share of its rival if Netscape would stop making its Navigator Internet browser for the Windows market. Those notes would later be used in the massive antitrust case against Microsoft Corporation.
And this week in 1998 – AT&T announced that it was buying cable TV giant TCI for $31.7 billion. The deal let AT&T move closer to its goal of providing local phone and high speed Internet service to millions of U.S. homes.