Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Geek/Maker Calendar

I don't know if anybody else has noticed, but Make seems to be posting a lot of "Maker Birthdays" lately. I thought it might be fun to put together a calendar with as many days as possible filled with not only birthdays of makers, but also birthdays of other notable geeks, and various other noteworthy days for geeks. I know I'm stretching it on a few of these, but hopefully not too far.

My list so far is not comprehensive, but I'm running low on ideas. I thought I'd open it to my geekier readers, to see if we can fill the comments on this post with other geek days. I have Wikipedia links where available, and links elsewhere otherwise. I'm trying to remain as unbiased as possible, which is why you see certain names on the list that I'm not necessarily a fan of. Please try to be unbiased too. Here's what I have so far:

Jan 1864: George Washington Carver - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington_Carver
Jan 1942: Brian Kernighan - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Kernighan
Jan 1, 1894: Satyendra Nath Bose - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bose-Einstein_condensation
Jan 2, 1920: Isaac Asimov - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov
Jan 3, 1892: J.R.R. Tolkien - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._R._R._Tolkien
Jan 4, 1643: Isaac Newton - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton
Jan 4, 1809: Louis Braille - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Braille
Jan 5, 1940: FM Radio first demonstrated to the FCC - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_5
Jan 8, 1942: Stephen Hawking - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_hawking
Jan 21, 1953: Paul Allen - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Allen
Feb 4, 1943: Ken Thompson - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Thompson
Feb 5, 1943: Nolan Bushnell - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nolan_Bushnell
Feb 8, 1828: Jules Verne - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_Verne
Feb 11, 1847: Thomas Edison - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_edison
Feb 18, 1745: Alessandro Volta - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alessandro_Volta
Feb 24, 1955: Steve Jobs - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_jobs
Mar 3, 1847: Alexander Graham Bell - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Graham_Bell
Mar 11, 1952: Douglas Adams - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Adams
Mar 13, 1733: Joseph Priestley - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Priestley
Mar 14, 1879: Albert Einstein - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein
Mar 14 : Pi Day
Mar 16, 1953: Richard Stallman - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman
Mar 17, 1948: William Gibson - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Gibson
Mar 24 : Ada Lovelace Day - http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2009/03/today_is_ada_lovelace_day_celebrati.html
Mar 31, 1811: Robert Bunsen - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Bunsen
Apr 16, 1867: Wilbur Wright - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_brothers
May 11, 1918: Richard Feynman - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman
Jun 6, 1954: Tim O'Reilly - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_O%27Reilly
Jun 8, 1955: Tim Berners-Lee - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee
Jun 19, 1623: Blaise Pascal - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaise_Pascal
Jun 23, 1912: Alan Turing - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_turing
Jun 26, 1824: William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Thomson,_1st_Baron_Kelvin
Jul 10, 1856: Nikola Tesla - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla
Jul 17, 1971: Cory Doctorow - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cory_Doctorow
Jul 20, 1969: Apollo 11 lands on the moon
Jul 30, 1863: Henry Ford - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_ford
Jul 30, 1962: Alton Brown - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alton_brown
Aug 8, 1901: Ernest Lawrence - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._O._Lawrence
Aug 11, 1950: Steve Wozniak - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Wozniak
Aug 12, 1887: Erwin Schrodinger - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erwin_Schr%C3%B6dinger
Aug 19, 1871: Orville Wright - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_brothers
Aug 19, 1906: Philo Farnsworth - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philo_Farnsworth
Aug 20, 1970: John Carmack - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Carmack
Sep 9, 1941: Dennis Ritchie - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Ritchie
Sep 24, 1954: Larry Wall - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Wall
Oct 7, 1885: Niels Bohr - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niels_Bohr
Oct 17, 1984: Randall Munroe - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randall_Munroe
Oct 28, 1955: Bill Gates - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_gates
Oct 31, 1959: Neal Stephenson - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neal_Stephenson
Nov 7, 1867: Marie Curie - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Curie
Nov 8, 1954: Bill Joy - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Joy
Dec 9, 1906: Grace Hooper - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper
Dec 10, 1815: Ada Lovelace - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_lovelace
Dec 24, 1818: James Prescott Joule - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Prescott_Joule
Dec 26, 1791: Charles Babbage - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Babbage
Dec 26, 1937: John Conway - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_H._Conway
Dec 27, 1822: Louis Pasteur - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Pasteur
Dec 28, 1969: Linus Torvalds - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_Torvalds
Dec 29, 1800: Charles Goodyear - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Goodyear

I have a few other names that I've come up with that either I don't have birthdays for, or am not sure if they warrant being on the list.

E.G. Kingsford (Kingsford Charcoal)
Jul 22, 1968: Alan Cox - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Cox
Damian Conway - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damian_Conway
Dave Bradley (CTRL-ALT-DEL) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bradley_(engineer)
JD Frazer (User Friendly) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.D._Frazer
Guido van Rossum - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guido_van_Rossum
Robert Morris - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_H._Morris_(cryptographer)

Anyone else want to submit some names?

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