Time Magazine has posted a feature called 80 Days That Changed the World, which chronicles 80 events that the magazine’s editors felt were pivotal events in world history over the past eight decades. And Apple’s founding is on the list.
The creation of the World Wide Web merited a spot on Time’s list, as did Turkey’s rise as a secular state. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s rise to power is recognized, along with infamous senator Joseph McCarthy’s first public anti-Communist speech.
Nestled in with such famous and infamous events is April 1, 1976 — the day that Apple Computer Inc. was founded by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak.
“Most computers in 1976 were room-size machines with Defense Department size price tags, but Wozniak had been tinkering with a new design, and his computer was different,” wrote Lev Grossman. Steve Wozniak — pictured in a photo on the page holding an Apple I motherboard design with Steve Jobs — expected his creation to appeal to hobbyists, but little more. In fact, Wozniak continued to hold a day job at Hewlett-Packard until some months later.
“Nobody, not even Jobs, saw what was coming next: that Apple would create the look and feel of every desktop in the world and start our love affair with the personal computer,” said Grossman.