Linux began as a hobby project of the Finnish student Linus Torvalds at the University of Helsinki, who announced that he was writing a free operating system kernel and released the first version, 0.01, in September 1991. The kernel was combined with software from the GNU project started by Richard Stallman to make a complete system, and it was released under the GNU General Public License, which allows anyone to modify and share it. Developers around the world joined in, and companies including IBM and Red Hat later invested in it. Linux now powers most web servers, the Android system through its kernel, and all of the world's fastest supercomputers. Its mascot is a penguin named Tux.
Before and after
- from 25 August 1991 to 18 November 1991Battle of Vukovar
- from 2 September 1991 to 1 January 2023Republic of Artsakh
- from 14 September 1991 to 23 November 1991Battle of the Barracks
- 17 September 1991Release of Linux kernel
- 17 September 1991Release of Linux
- 19 September 1991Otzi the Iceman is found
- October 1991Release of The Unicode Standard
- from 29 October 1991 to 3 January 1992Operation Orkan 91
- from 31 October 1991 to 4 November 1991Operation Swath-10
More in Science & technology
- 1949Discovery of berkelium
- 1952Discovery of einsteinium
- December 1952Discovery of fermium
- 1958Discovery of nobelium
- c. 1980sInvention of laptop
- 9 November 1994Discovery of darmstadtium
The era
This moment belongs to the Contemporary world (1945 CE to today), the world since 1945. You can also browse everything in the 20th century.