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Twentieth Anniversary Mac launches: Today in Apple history

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March 20: Today in Apple history: Twentieth Anniversary Mac lands with a thud March 20, 1997: Apple launches its Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh, a futuristic, special-edition Mac that’s ahead of its time in every way. Not part of any established Mac line, it brings a look (and a price!) unlike anything else available — and Apple delivers them to buyers in a limo!

And yet the Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh promptly bombs. Today, it’s a collector’s piece.

The 20th anniversary Mac … sort of

Somewhat confusingly, the Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh didn’t actually represent the 20th anniversary of the Mac. (That milestone passed in 2004 with very little fanfare from Apple.) Instead, the innovative Mac marked 20 years since the 1977 incorporation of Apple.

With the Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh, Apple easily could have looked to the past and built a Mac that paid tribute to the look of the original Macintosh 128K. In some ways, this would have made perfect sense in the “bad old days” of the 1990s, when Apple was effectively selling to a small but devoted group of Mac addicts.

Instead, Apple boldly did the opposite, building a computer that looked like it came from the future. The Twentieth Anniversary Mac was the first flatscreen Mac in history, with a design that massively predated today’s gorgeous iMacs.

As with the flatscreen monitor, the Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh embraced the future by aiming to be a full multimedia machine. It boasted an integrated TV/FM radio system, S-video input and a custom sound system designed by Bose.

From a visual perspective, the weirdest thing about the Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh was its CD drive. Unlike the almost-invisible slots of later Macs, the CD drive on the Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh was a front-on vertical square that dominated the front of the machine.

Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh launch: Harbinger of change

The Twentieth Anniversary Mac launch: The machine looked like no Mac before
The Twentieth Anniversary Mac looked like no Mac before.
Photo: Apple

In keeping with the theme of looking to the future, the Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh also signaled a change inside Apple.

Blaming the company’s dysfunctional culture, head designer Robert Brunner quit Apple shortly before the Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh came to market. That cleared the way for Jony Ive — who worked as a designer on the project — to rise through the ranks.

Rise of Apple design group

The Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh was one of the first computers to start out within Apple’s design group rather than the company’s engineering department. Given Ive’s lofty position within Apple in later years, this approach became standard practice in Cupertino. But that certainly wasn’t the case in the mid-1990s. (Ive, who went on to become Apple’s chief design officer, left the company in 2019 after a string of hits.)

The Twentieth Anniversary Mac arrived as Apple went through enormous changes, with former CEO Gil Amelio stepping down and Steve Jobs rejoining the company as part of its NeXT acquisition.

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak came back as an adviser, too. For a short period of time, 1997 really was like 1977 again. Jobs and Woz briefly played a bigger role in Apple than they had in years.

(Apple actually gave the first two Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh units to Jobs and Wozniak. Woz loved it, describing it as the perfect computer for a college student since it came with “computer, TV, radio, CD player and more … all in one sleek machine.)

Twentieth Anniversary Mac fails in the marketplace

Unfortunately, the Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh (like another of my favorite Macs, the Power Mac G4 Cube) failed completely at the box office. When it launched, the TAM cost $9,000 (more than $17,400 in today’s dollars). That price tag made it totally unaffordable to the average consumer, let alone college students.

In the end, Apple sold just a few thousand units.

As with the battles between Jobs and Jef Raskin over the original Mac, a disagreement arose over whether the Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh should be a regular computer priced for the masses, or a pricey special edition — which is what the marketing department wanted. The marketers won out, and the Twentieth Anniversary Mac floundered as a result.

A luxury Mac, delivered in a limo

What is the deal with the Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh? Jerry Seinfeld had one.
“What is the deal with the Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh?”
Photo: Seinfeld

For what it’s worth, if you did buy an early Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh, you enjoyed an experience like no other.

Forget waiting in line at the store. Apple delivered the Twentieth Anniversary Macs to buyers’ homes via limo. A man in a tuxedo would set up the high-end machines.

Apple eventually chopped the price of the Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh to just $2,000, before discontinuing it in March 1998. It never caught on with consumers, although it did win design awards.

The unique computer also popped up in pop culture. It served as the Mac in Jerry’s apartment in the final season of Seinfeld. And Alfred Pennyworth used a TAM in the terrible 1997 movie Batman & Robin.

If you’re looking for a Mac that bridges the gap between the doomed experimentalism of Apple in the 1990s and the company Apple eventually morphed into, the utterly unique Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh is the perfect machine. Just don’t expect to easily find one going cheap on eBay.



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Macintosh IIfx speeds into stores: Today in Apple history

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March 19: Today in Apple history: The ultra-fast Macintosh IIfx speeds into stores March 19, 1990: The ultra-fast Macintosh IIfx makes its debut, sporting a hefty price tag appropriate for such a speedy machine.

The fastest Macintosh of its day, it boasts a CPU running at a “wicked fast” 40 MHz. It gains an additional speed bump from a pair of Apple-designed, application-specific integrated circuits. Prices start at $9,870 and run up to $12,000 — the equivalent of $23,434 to $28,492 in 2024 money!

Macintosh IIfx: A powerhouse Mac

The 16th Mac model released, the Macintosh IIfx revealed just how drastically personal computing power had increased in the few short years since the original Mac’s launch in 1984.

A pricey powerhouse, the Macintosh IIfx utilized Motorola’s 40 MHz 68030 microprocessor with a 68882 floating point co-processor. Apple claimed this gave buyers the performance of a Sun Microsystems Sparcstation 1, a pro-grade piece of kit.

In addition to the CPU, the IIfx got a speed boost from its two dedicated I/O processors, referred to as “peripheral interface controllers.” These were a pair of 10 MHz 6502 CPUs, the same CPU family used in the Apple II. They managed the low-level I/O tasks on the Apple bus, floppy disk drive and serial ports that the 68030 microprocessor previously handled.

The IIfx’s high speed made it the fastest Mac available until Apple released the Quadra 900 in October 1991.

With Macintosh IIfx, Apple says goodbye to Snow White design language

In terms of design, the IIfx proved significant as well. It was the last computer released using Apple’s influential “Snow White” industrial design language, introduced in 1984.

Designer Hartmut Esslinger of Frog Design came up with the Snow White look. He utilized design flourishes such as vertical and horizontal stripes to create the illusion that the computer was smaller than it really was.

Mac IIfx is not enough to crack big business

Despite its power, the Macintosh IIfx did not break into the professional workstation world the way Apple hoped. Cupertino envisioned the computer finding a place in the engineering and medical imaging world. Apple even dreamed of winning over power users on Wall Street.

This didn’t exactly happen. A September 10, 1990, article in Computerworld observed, “Mac IIfx: Not yet to be feared.” It described how, months after the computer’s release, the IIfx still struggled to become a serious contender in the workplace.

The main reason? Apple “underestimated the ferocity of the workstation market.”

While undeniably powerful, the IIfx lagged behind top-of-the-line workstations made by IBM and Digital Equipment Corp. Still, it found favor with its core audience of power Macintosh users. It particularly appealed to people working in creative fields who required serious graphics firepower.

If you used a Mac in 1990, it didn’t get much better than this! Apple sold the Macintosh IIfx through April 1992.

More on Mac history

For more info on the history of the Macintosh, read our in-depth story: “Evolution of the Mac: 40 years of innovation.”



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Steve Jobs marries Laurene Powell: Today in Apple history

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March 18: Today in Apple history: Steve Jobs marries Laurene Powell March 18, 1991: Steve Jobs marries 27-year-old Stanford MBA Laurene Powell.

The couple’s friends and family attend the wedding, which takes place at Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite National Park in central California.

Steve Jobs meets Laurene Powell

Jobs met Powell in October 1989, shortly after the NeXT Computer debuted. He gave a lecture at Stanford Business School, titled “View From the Top.”

Powell, a graduate student in the business school, arrived late for Jobs’ presentation. She wound up getting a front-row seat and, afterward, talked with the Apple co-founder. According to Powell, she didn’t know exactly who Jobs was — and even confused him with Microsoft founder Bill Gates.

A chance meeting?

Others who knew her and Jobs disagreed with her recollection, suggesting that she set out to meet him.

“Laurene is nice, but she can be calculating, and I think she targeted him from the beginning,” former Macintosh software engineer Andy Hertzfeld told Jobs biographer Walter Isaacson.

Either way, Jobs asked Powell out on a date, and the two became involved. He asked her to marry him on the first day of 1990. However, once she accepted, he stopped mentioning their engagement. After a fractious few months, Jobs finally bought her a wedding ring in October 1990.

Before meeting Powell, Jobs dated Tina Redse. They enjoyed an on-again, off-again relationship for several years. The couple even discussed marriage, but Redse says she turned down a proposal from Jobs.

Steve Jobs gets married at last

The Jobs-Powell wedding took place in March 1991. Around 50 people attended, including Jobs’ adoptive father Paul Jobs and sister Mona Simpson. The service — overseen by Zen Buddhist monk Kōbun Chino Otogawa, who struck a gong and lit incense — proved confusing to many of the guests.

After the ceremony, the group ate a vegan wedding cake shaped like the Half Dome rock formation that towers over one end of Yosemite Valley. Then they went hiking in the snow.

At the time of the wedding, Powell was pregnant with the couple’s oldest child, Reed. Two more children, Erin Sienna and Eve, followed.

Jobs and Powell remained married until he died at the age of 56 in late 2011. She continues to do philanthropic work with the Emerson Collective and the XQ Institute, two organizations she founded.



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Apple sues Microsoft for ripping off Mac OS: Today in Apple history

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March 17: Today in Apple history: Apple sues Microsoft for ripping off Mac OS March 17, 1988: Apple sues Microsoft for allegedly stealing 189 different elements of its Macintosh operating system to create Windows 2.0.

The incident, which causes a deep rift between Apple and one of its top developers, paves the way for an epic battle between the two companies that will rage for years.

Apple sues Microsoft after developer goes from friend to foe

As a valued developer, Microsoft got a behind-the-scenes look at the development of the Macintosh project prior to its 1984 release. Shortly after the very first Mac 128K went on sale, Microsoft founder Bill Gates wrote then-Apple CEO John Sculley. Gates suggested Apple should license the Macintosh operating system to outside manufacturers to help establish it as the standard interface for personal computing.

Sculley was tentatively open to the idea. But on June 25, 1985, Apple exec Jean-Louis Gassée shot down the proposal. (Gassée took over running the Mac division from Steve Jobs.)

Gates decided to capitalize on what he saw as a great business opportunity to create a mass-market operating system. He debuted Windows on November 15, 1985.

Windows debut stirs anger at Apple

Sculley reacted furiously when he saw Windows, although version 1.0 did not compare well to Mac OS. For example, although the new Microsoft OS featured onscreen windows, they could not overlap one another.

However, in some ways, Windows seemed eerily close to Mac. For one thing, Microsoft packaged it with built-in apps Write and Paint, which were reminiscent of MacWrite and MacPaint.

Since Microsoft made up two-thirds of software sales for Mac at the time, it was in nobody’s interest to break up the partnership. Mac sales were underperforming as it was, and Microsoft’s first version of Windows was no more threatening than any of the other Apple knockoffs floating around.

A disastrous agreement between Microsoft and Apple

Windows wasn’t a straight-up Mac OS ripoff. In fact, Microsoft began developing Windows before Gates ever saw the Macintosh. Plus, both operating systems licensed technology from Xerox PARC, which did a lot of the creative legwork on inventing the graphical user interface.

As a result, Microsoft and Apple came to an agreement. Sculley and Gates signed a deal on Nov. 21, 1985, that licensed the Mac’s “visual displays” to Microsoft. Gates agreed that Microsoft would continue writing software for Mac. Microsoft also gave Apple a two-year exclusivity window on its popular spreadsheet program Excel.

Controversially, this deal gave Microsoft a “non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual, nontransferable license to use [parts of the Mac technology] in present and future software programs, and to license them to and through third parties for use in their software programs.”

Windows 2.0: Apple sues Microsoft

A couple of years later, Windows 2.0 arrived. It resembled the Macintosh interface much more closely than the first version of Microsoft’s operating system. As a result, on March 17, 1988 — the date we’re commemorating today — Apple sued Microsoft for stealing its work.

Unfortunately, things didn’t go well for Apple. Judge William Schwarzer ruled that the existing license between Apple and Microsoft covered certain interface elements for the new Windows. Those that weren’t covered were not copyrightable.

It was the start of a decade of dominance for Microsoft, and a decade of disaster and near-ruin for Apple.



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iTunes tops 50 million song downloads: Today in Apple history

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itunes
That’s worth a quick dance!
Photo: Apple

March 15: Today in Apple history: iTunes tops 50 million songs downloaded March 15, 2004: The iTunes Music Store hits a musical milestone, having sold an astonishing 50 million songs in less than a year. The achievement cements Apple’s place at the center of the rapidly changing music business — at least for the moment.

“Crossing 50 million songs is a major milestone for iTunes and the emerging digital music era,” Steve Jobs says in a statement. “With over 50 million songs already downloaded and an additional 2.5 million songs being downloaded every week, it’s increasingly difficult to imagine others ever catching up with iTunes.”

iTunes takes the music business by storm

While the 2004 numbers proved undoubtedly impressive, today Apple has sold billions of songs through iTunes. The company long ago stopped announcing the new landmark sales levels it hit. In other words, Apple was just getting started.

At the time, Jobs (for once) downplayed the speed at which iTunes was taking over the music industry. However, he was being totally accurate about how far ahead of the rest of the competition Apple was. Just a few months later, Apple smashed through the 100-million-song barrier.

Within five years of opening its virtual doors on April 28, 2003, Apple became the biggest music vendor (not just online) in the United States. It grew to the largest worldwide by February 2010.

Apple squanders its early lead?

Ultimately, it took the surge of streaming services like Spotify for Apple to lose its position as the clear marketplace leader. As of 2024, Spotify leads the pack in terms of paid subscribers with more than 236 million paid subscribers. Apple Music has an estimated 101 million users, with no free version available.  Music downloads, by comparison, are pretty much dead.

Still, iTunes sales milestones like the one celebrated today are always fun to look back on. They remind us of how much further Apple had to climb at the time.

Do you remember what your first iTunes song download was? Leave your memories and assorted recollections below.



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Power Mac 7100 spurs Carl Sagan lawsuit: Today in Apple history

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March 14: Today in Apple history: Power Mac 7100 lands Apple in hot water with Carl Sagan March 14, 1994: Apple introduces the Power Macintosh 7100, a midrange Mac that will become memorable for two reasons.

The first is that it is among the first Macs to use new PowerPC processors. The second is that it results in Apple getting taken to court by astronomer Carl Sagan — not once but twice.

Power Macintosh 7100: A solid Mac

The Power Macintosh 7100 was one of three Macs introduced in March 1994, with the other two being the lower-end Power Macintosh 6100 and the high-end 8100 model.

The Power Mac 7100’s PowerPC processor ran at 66 MHz (a spec that Apple upgraded to 80 MHz in January 1995). The computer’s hard drive ranged between 250MB and 700MB in size. The Mac also sported Apple’s then-standard NuBus card slots and 72-pin paired RAM slots.

The Mac 7100 came in a slightly modified Macintosh IIvx case. (The IIvx was the first Mac to come in a metal case and feature an internal CD-ROM drive.)

Costing between $2,900 and $3,500, the Mac 7100 was a solid piece of hardware that bridged the gap nicely between the low-end consumer 6100 and its higher-end 8100 sibling. It was, for example, perfectly capable of running two monitors. However, it could overheat when performing particularly strenuous tasks such as complex rendering of images or videos.

The Power Mac 7100 compared with the other Power Macintoshes of its day
The Mac 7100 compared with the other Power Macintoshes of its day.
Photo: Apple

Carl Sagan sues Apple over Power Mac 7100 code name

As many Apple fans will know, the company’s engineers frequently give code names to projects they’re working on, either to maintain secrecy or just for fun. They gave the Power Mac 7100 the code name “Carl Sagan” as a tribute to the famous astronomer.

Unfortunately, the secret in-joke spilled in a 1993 issue of MacWeek that eventually found its way into Sagan’s hands. In a letter to MacWeek, Sagan wrote:

“I have been approached many times over the past two decades by individuals and corporations seeking to use my name and/or likeness for commercial purposes. I have always declined, no matter how lucrative the offer or how important the corporation. My endorsement is not for sale.

For this reason, I was profoundly distressed to see your lead front-page story ‘Trio of Power PC Macs spring toward March release date’ proclaiming Apple’s announcement of a new Mac bearing my name. That this was done without my authorization or knowledge is especially disturbing. Through my attorneys, I have repeatedly requested Apple to make a public clarification that I knew nothing of its intention to capitalize on my reputation in introducing this product, that I derived no benefit, financial or otherwise, from its doing so. Apple has refused. I would appreciate it if you so apprise your readership.”

A new code name: ‘Butt-Head Astronomer’

Carl Sagan wasn't on the best terms with Apple in 1994
Carl Sagan wasn’t on the best terms with Apple in 1994.
Photo: Carl Sagan Planetary Society CC

Forced to change the code name, Apple engineers began calling the project “BHA,” which stood for “Butt-Head Astronomer.”

Sagan then sued Apple over the implication that he was a “butt-head.” The judge overseeing the matter made the following statement:

“There can be no question that the use of the figurative term ‘butt-head’ negates the impression that Defendant was seriously implying an assertion of fact. It strains reason to conclude the Defendant was attempting to criticize Plaintiff’s reputation of competency as an astronomer. One does not seriously attack the expertise of a scientist using the undefined phrase ‘butt-head.’”

Still, Apple’s legal team asked the engineers to change the code name once more. They picked “LAW” — standing for “Lawyers Are Wimps.”

Sagan appealed the judge’s decision. Eventually, in late 1995, the famous astronomer reached a settlement with Apple. From that point on, Cupertino appears to have used only benign code names related to activities like skiing.

Do you remember the Power Macintosh 7100? Leave your comments below.



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A Black mathematical history

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Journeys of Black Mathematicians: Forging Resilience Zala Films Directed by George Csicsery

What does a mathematician look like? Standing in front of a room of Black children aged six to twelve, research mathematician Zerotti Woods — who posed the question — is not far off their description. Woods, who is based at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, is wearing nice trousers, a jacket and even round glasses. Yet he’s told he doesn’t look like a mathematician. Their unspoken assumption seems to be that mathematicians are white.

In the documentary Journeys of Black Mathematicians: Forging Resilience, film maker George Csicsery interviews more than 50 scholars, who speak about the value of mathematics, share parts of their journeys and look to the future. The film, which was co-produced with the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, premiered in January and has been released online. By juxtaposing career paths with the historical timeline of the civil-rights movement in the United States, the film seeks to show what Black mathematicians have been through and provide hope for what can be. That hope is more than a wish. It is backed up by descriptions of supportive programmes, nurturing educators, positive changes in the community and success stories.

Historical attitudes toward Black mathematicians thread through the film. Scholars such as William Claytor faced blatant discrimination throughout their careers. The US Supreme Court’s 1954 integration decision, in which segregated schools were deemed unconstitutional, gave Black students access to white educational spaces. But such access did not necessarily come with better education or treatment. One interviewee notes that the good teachers at Black schools did not follow the children to the desegregated schools. In higher education, Black spaces did not cease to exist. Historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) were almost all founded before desegregation, because most pre-existing institutions, particularly in the southern states, either prohibited Black students from attending, or limited their presence through quotas.

Role models

Teaching and learning at HBCUs is a point of pride throughout the documentary. These are places where Black maths students are nurtured rather than ‘othered’. Many interviewees describe how the representation and support they found at these colleges propelled them into the field.

Among those acknowledged as impactful educators are Claude Dansby, who was at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, from 1922 to 1967, and Etta Falconer, who was mainly at Spelman College, also in Atlanta, between 1965 and 1985. Through interviews with former students and colleagues, Csicsery draws parallels between them and two mathematicians currently at Morehouse: Duane Cooper and Ulrica Wilson. All are beloved by students and are considered the main reason that some pursued and succeeded in maths. All four had a crucial influence on the paths of dozens of Black mathematicians — which speaks not just to their teaching methods, but more importantly to how they supported their students, and believed in and cared about them. Woods specifically mentions that Cooper taking responsibility for him was the only reason that he was allowed to finish his degree at Morehouse after having been expelled for a year. That care made all the difference.

Many who were interviewed in the film note just how few Black people they met on their maths journey. I’ve also found this. According to the 2018 US Mathematical and Statistical Sciences Annual Survey, 2.9% of US maths PhDs were awarded to Black mathematicians that year (see go.nature.com/3tphae6). Given that around 14% of the US population is Black, this number is incredibly low.

If you’re looking for an explanation, the documentary describes some of the roots of the systemic racism that still permeates maths. The US National Association for Mathematicians (NAM), created in 1969, aims to promote excellence in the mathematical sciences and “the mathematical development of underrepresented minorities”. Civil-rights pioneer and former educator at Winston-Salem State University in North Carolina, Virginia Newell, who appears in the film, makes its origins clear: “The reason why we started the NAM was because the whites did not want us at their meetings.” And how could Black mathematicians be welcome when meetings were being held at segregated institutions?

Portrait of William Claytor from 1937

William Claytor was discouraged by the racism prevalent in the field.Credit: Courtesy of the Dolph Briscoe Centre for American History

Black people are often still being treated disrespectfully at maths meetings, confirmed a 2021 report by an American Mathematical Society task force (see go.nature.com/43dhf67). By organizing a range of events — such as lecture series, sessions at large maths conferences and MATHFest, an annual meeting and networking event for undergraduate students — and by ensuring Black scholars are invited to them, NAM provides, crucially, a community.

Aspirations for the future

The stories of Black mathematicians shared in the film are inspiring. It is wonderful to learn about successes in academia and industry — but there is still a long way to go. Csicsery makes that clear by titling the final chapter of the film ‘Unfinished business’. The percentage of US maths PhDs earned by Black people has remained mostly unchanged since 1978. “We’ve not moved the needle in producing PhDs,” notes Freeman Hrabowski III, former president of the University of Maryland in Catonsville, who grew up in segregated Alabama.

The question that needs to be asked now is which spaces are worth entering. The film suggests that Black people should be everywhere, so that there are those with similar mindsets and values in every room. But I disagree; there are some rooms that we should not aspire to enter. Not just because they provide a hostile environment — that can eventually be changed. But because some spaces have too high a moral cost. Is it worthwhile to create weapons or work for security agencies, for example, in a push for representation? For me, the answer to that is absolutely not.

Csicsery’s film did not interrogate that idea, but we should. We should sit with the discomfort of the fact that pushing back against the inequities of the past and present should not include contributing to the oppression of others. When watching this worthwhile film, you will be equipped with enough history to ponder another question: where do we go from here?

Competing Interests

The author declares no competing interests.

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Ancient malaria genome from Roman skeleton hints at disease’s history

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A coloured transmission electron micrograph showing a blue and green cell with several organelles inside a red cell.

The malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum infecting a red blood cell.Credit: Dennis Kunkel Microscopy/Science Photo Library

Researchers have sequenced the mitochondrial genome of the deadliest form of malaria from an ancient Roman skeleton. They say the results could help to untangle the history of the disease in Europe.

It’s difficult to find signs of malaria in ancient human remains, and DNA from the malaria-causing parasite Plasmodium rarely shows up in them. As a result, there had never been a complete genomic sequence of the deadliest species, Plasmodium falciparum, from before the twentieth century — until now. “P. falciparum was eliminated in Europe a half century ago, and genetic data from European parasites — ancient or recent — has been an elusive piece in the puzzle of understanding how humans have moved parasites around the globe,” says Daniel Neafsey, who studies the genomics of malaria parasites and mosquito vectors at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts.

Malaria has long been a leading cause of human deaths. “With the development of treatments such as quinine in the last hundreds of years, it seems clear [humans and malaria] are co-evolving,” says Carles Lalueza Fox, a palaeogenomicist at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology in Barcelona, Spain. “Discovering the genomes of the ancient, pre-quinine plasmodia will likely reveal information about how they have adapted to the different anti-malarial drugs.”

Ancient pathogen

There are five malaria-causing species of Plasmodium, which are thought to have arisen in Africa between 50,000 and 60,000 years ago, and then spread worldwide. Most researchers agree that they reached Europe at least 2,000 years ago, by the time of the Roman Empire.

Plasmodium falciparum “has significantly impacted human history and evolution”, says Neafsey. “So, that makes it particularly important to discover how long different societies have had to deal with [it], and how human migration and trade activities spread it.”

Researchers can glean valuable information about the origin, evolution and virulence of the parasite from DNA extracted from the ancient remains of infected people. But it is difficult to know where to look: it is not always obvious whether a person was infected with Plasmodium, and whether DNA can be recovered depends on how well it has been preserved.

In a preprint posted on the server bioRxiv1, a team of researchers led by a group at the University of Vienna identified the first complete mitochondrial genome sequence of P. falciparum from the bones of a Roman who lived in Italy in the second century ad, known as Velia-186.

Plasmodium falciparum had been detected in Velia-186 in a previous study2. The authors of the latest preprint extracted the parasite’s DNA from the body’s teeth, and were able to identify 5,458 pieces of unique genetic information that they combined to get a sequence covering 99.1% of the mitochondrial genome. They also used software to compare the genome with modern samples, and found that the Velia-186 sequence is closely related to a group of present-day strains found in India.

Carried by migration

The researchers say their findings support a hypothesis that P. falciparum spread to Europe from Asia around at least 2,000 years ago3. The Indian strains “were already present in Europe [then]; thus, a potential arrival with globalization episodes such as the Hellenistic period — when it is first described by Greeks — seems plausible”, says Lalueza Fox.

Neafsey says the work is a “technical tour de force” and an interesting addition to the limited field of ancient malaria genomics. But he adds that the results should be interpreted with caution because there are only a few samples, and points out that a genome sequence from DNA in the parasite’s cell nuclei, rather than its mitochondria, “might indicate a more complex story of parasite movement among ancient human populations”.

Lalueza Fox suggests exploring other potential sources of Plasmodium DNA, such as old bones, antique medical equipment and even mosquito specimens in museums. “The integration of genetic data from these heterogeneous sources will provide a nuanced view of this disease,” he says. “It would be interesting to see what lessons we can learn from the past on the strains and dispersals of this pathogen.”

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CNN predicts doom for Apple: Today in Apple history

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March 13: Today in Apple history: CNN predicts doom for Apple March 13, 1997: With Apple preparing to cut thousands of jobs, CNN reports that “the coffin door is closing” on Cupertino. Apple is doomed! Doomed!

Knowing what happened in the years following, we guess this could technically be considered “fake news.”

CNN says Apple is doomed

With my Today in Apple history entries, I typically steer clear of highlighting comically inaccurate stories predicting Apple’s doom. After all, hindsight is 20/20. Writing about Apple for a living, I’m sure I’ve covered some dubious rumors over the years that failed to materialize as reported.

Still, more than two decades since the publication of CNN‘s story, “Apple running out of time,” it’s fun to go back and see how wrong the pundits were in 1997.

The death of Apple?

For this particular story, CNN spoke with Gene Glazer, technology analyst at (now defunct) securities firm Dean Witter.

“I don’t see how [Apple] can go much lower than that and do what they have to do, which is get back on track and turn the company around,” Glazer said.

Elsewhere in the article, he said Apple needed to turn things around — and do so quickly — or face the end.

“They don’t have a lot of time,” Glazer said. “I would say even two years is too long.”

As if to compound his incorrect predictions, Glazer totally missed the boat on the Newton MessagePad. He said people likely could bank on the success of Apple’s PDA. Apple had just debuted a new version of its Newton operating system, and was in the process of spinning off Newton as a startup.

According to Glazer, the biggest problem Apple faced was its reputation on Wall Street, which was in tatters.

“The people investing in Apple are contrarians,” he said. “The analysts are generally very pessimistic about the outlook.”

Apple doomed: What happened?

The “Apple is doomed” story, as reported, wasn’t totally wrong. In fact, Apple soon announced plans to cut 4,100 jobs — about one-third of its workforce at the time.

On top of that, Apple then reported a quarterly loss of $56 million that effectively ended then-CEO Gil Amelio’s 500 days of running the company.

The $56 million hit contributed to an overall Apple loss of $1.6 billion during Amelio’s reign. The losing streak wiped out every cent of profit Cupertino had earned since fiscal 1991.

Steve Jobs turns Apple around

However, it didn’t take long for Apple co-founder Steve Jobs to turn things around after his return to the company in September 1997. Aggressive cost-cutting, which also included slashing Apple’s R&D spending on unnecessary projects, helped reduce the company’s losses. In addition, new products like the beige Power Macintosh G3 computer performed very well with customers. (It sold 130,000 units against a forecast of 80,000.)

By January 1998, in fact, Apple became profitable again — well within the time frame Glazer laid out for a turnaround. From there, Apple debuted the iMac G3 and iBook, and never looked back.

Oh, and the Newton — whose future was supposedly all but guaranteed — soon wound up being canceled so Apple could focus on building Macs.



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Apple market cap breezes by Walmart: Today in Apple history

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Apple could be a $2 trillion company by end of 2021
At this point, a $200 billion market cap seems almost quaint for Apple.
Photo illustration: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

March 12: Today in Apple history: Apple overtakes Walmart in value March 12, 2010: Apple passes Walmart and investment firm Berkshire Hathaway in value to take third place in market capitalization among publicly listed U.S. companies. The Apple market cap soars past $200 billion, fueled by intense excitement over the first-generation iPad.

Things look good for the company as it guns for powerhouses ExxonMobil and Microsoft.

Apple’s climb to the top of the stock market

At the time, AAPL was trading at $226 per share. Today, it trades higher than $172, but bear in mind that a seven-to-one stock split took place in 2014 after AAPL peaked at $645. If that split hadn’t happened, Apple would now be trading at a much higher price.

Back in 2010, it didn’t take Apple long to catch up to market leaders ExxonMobil and Microsoft after passing Walmart. In May 2010, Apple overtook Microsoft, surpassing the tech giant that dominated Cupertino during the previous decade. A little over a year after that, on August 9, 2011, Apple blew past oil giant ExxonMobil to become the world’s most valuable company.

In all, it was an astonishing turnaround for a company that came perilously close to going out of business during the 1990s.

Apple market cap heads for $1 trillion

Today, Apple has long since passed its $200 billion valuation. It went on to become the first company in history to reach the $700 billion, the $800 billion and the $900 billion marks. That was all en route to the $3 trillion mark, which Apple achieved on January 3, 2022. (That peak didn’t last: Today, Apple’s market cap sits at $2.66 trillion.)

Did you follow Apple during its climb to the top of the stock market? Did you possess the foresight to invest before the Apple market cap shot sky-high? Let us know in the comments below.




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