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19691776 Club

IBM puts a price on software; hardware and code will no longer come as one

Starting January 1970, IBM will bill programs and services separately from its machines, opening space for independent vendors to compete on price for the first time.

Before 1969, if you bought a computer from IBM, the software came with it — no separate price, no separate market, no independent vendors with any real room to compete. That year, IBM announced it would begin pricing its software and services separately from its hardware, effective January 1970. The decision didn't just change IBM's billing practices. It cracked open a market that hadn't formally existed, giving independent software companies the oxygen they needed to grow into an industry of their own…

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More from June 23
1972

Nixon tells Haldeman to use the CIA to block the FBI's Watergate inquiry

Six days after the break-in at Democratic headquarters, the Oval Office recording system captures the President invoking national security to shut down investigators.
1961

Twelve nations' Antarctic pact takes force; military operations and nuclear tests are now banned on the continent

The agreement, signed in 1959 after Argentine marines fired on British researchers, designates everything south of 60°S as a scientific preserve open to all signatories.
1972

Nixon signs 37 words into law; no federal program may turn away a student on the basis of sex

Senator Birch Bayh's passage, buried in the Education Amendments of 1972, draws almost no public attention at the signing.
17801776 Club
Continental troops and New Jersey militia blunt both British columns at the Rahway crossings, and the redcoats leave nearly the whole town in ashes as they pull back.
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Read the full June 23 edition →Everything that happened on June 23 →
More from Cold War America
1950

North Korean guns open on the 38th parallel at dawn; Seoul has no tanks to stop them

Kim Il Sung's forces pour south into an almost entirely unprepared country; the U.N. Security Council condemns the invasion, and Truman moves toward committing U.S. troops.
1948

Clay orders supply flights into Tempelhof; the question now is whether the air can feed two million

Stalin sealed every land route into West Berlin days ago, betting the Allies would negotiate their way out rather than try to sustain a city from the sky.
1950

Truman orders air and sea forces to Korea; the UN backs a unified command under American leadership

Seoul fell yesterday, and the Security Council voted hours ago, but the question in Washington was never whether to act, only how fast.
1950

American fighters meet North Korean Yaks above Suwon; three shot down, none lost

F-82s and F-80Cs scrambled to cover civilian evacuation flights out of Seoul, two days after North Korean forces crossed the 38th parallel.
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