Unix, Linux, and variant history

Year	Event
1957	Bell Labs found they needed an operating system for their computer center that at the time was running various batch jobs. The BESYS operating system was created at Bell Labs to deal with these needs.
1965	Bell Labs was adopting third generation computer equipment and decided to join forces with General Electric and MIT to create Multics (Multiplexed Information and Computing Service).
1969	By April 1969, AT&T made a decision to withdraw Multics and go with GECOS. When Multics was withdrawn Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie needed to rewrite an operating system in order to play space travel on another smaller machine (a DEC PDP-7 [Programmed Data Processor 4K memory for user programs). The result was a system that a punning colleague called UNICS (UNiplexed Information and Computing Service)--an 'emasculated Multics'.
1969	Summer 1969 Unix was developed.
1969	Linus Torvalds is born.
1971	First edition of Unix released 11/03/1971. The first edition of the "Unix PROGRAMMER'S MANUAL [by] K. Thompson [and] D. M. Ritchie." It includes over 60 commands like: b (compile B program); boot (reboot system); cat (concatenate files); chdir (change working directory); chmod (change access mode); chown (change owner); cp (copy file); ls (list directory contents); mv (move or rename file); roff (run off text); wc (get word count); who(who is one the system). The main thing missing was pipes.
1972	Second edition of Unix released December 06, 1972.
1972	Ritchie rewrote B and called the new language C.
1973	Unix had been installed on 16 sites (all within AT&T/Western Electric); it was publically unveiled at a conference in October.
1973	Third edition of Unix released February 1973
1973	Forth edition of Unix released November 1973
1974	Fifth edition of Unix released June 1974
1974	Thompson went to UC Berkeley to teach for a year, Bill Joy arrived as a new graduate student. Frustrated with ed, Joy developed a more featured editor em.
1975	Sixth edition of Unix released May 1975
1975	Bourne shell is introduced begins being added onto.
1977	1BSD released late 1977
1978	2BSD released mid 1978
1979	Seventh edition of Unix released January 1979
1979	3BSD released late 1979
1979	SCO founded by Doug and Larry Michels as Unix porting and consulting company.
1980	4.0BSD released October 1980
1982	SGI introduces IRIX.
1983	SCO delivers its first packaged Unix system called SCO XENIX System V for Intel 8086 and 8088 processor-based PCs.
1983	The GNU operating system is first announced by Richard Stallman September 27, 1983.
1984	Ultrix 1.0 was released.
1985	Eighth edition of Unix released February 1985
1985	The GNU manifesto is published in the March 1985 issue of Dr. Dobb's Journal. The GNU project starts a year and a half later.
1986	HP-UX 1.0 released.
1986	Ninth edition of Unix released September 1986
1987	Sun and AT&T lay the groundwork for business computing in the next decade with an alliance to develop Unix System V Release 4.
1988	HP-UX 2.0 released.
1988	HP-UX 3.0 released.
1989	SCO ships SCO Unix System V/386, the first volume commercial product licensed by AT&T to use the Unix System trademark.
1989	HP-UX 7.0 released.
1989	Tenth edition of Unix released October 1989
1990	AIX short for Advanced Interactive eXecutive was first entered into the market by IBMFebruary 1990.
1991	Sun unveils Solaris 2 operating environment, specially tuned for symmetric multiprocessing.
1991	Linux is introduced by Linus Torvalds, a student in Finland.
1991	HP-UX 8.0 released.
1991	BSD/386 ALPHA First code released to people outside BSDI 12/xx/1991
1992	HP-UX 9.0 released.
1993	NetBSD 0.8 released 04/20/1993
1993	FreeBSD 1.0 released December of 1993
1994	Red Hat Linux is introduced.
1994	Caldera, Inc was founded in 1994 by Ransom Love and Bryan Sparks.
1994	NetBSD 1.0 released 10/26/1994
1995	FreeBSD 2.0 released 01/xx/1995
1995	SCO acquires Unix Systems source technology business from Novell Corporation (which had acquired it from AT&T's Unix System Laboratories). SCO also acquires UnixWare 2 operating system from Novell.
1995	HP-UX 10.0 released.
1995	4.4 BSD Lite Release 2 the true final distribution from the CSRG 06/xx/1995
1996	KDE is started to be developed by Matthias Ettrich
1997	HP-UX 11.0 released.
1997	Caldera ships OpenLinux Standard 1.1 May 5, 1997, the second offering in Caldera's OpenLinux product line
1998	IRIX 6.5 the fifth generation of SGI Unix is released July 6, 1998.
1998	SCO delivers UnixWare 7 operating system.
1998	Sun Solaris 7 operating system released.
1998	FreeBSD 3.0 released 10/16/1998
2000	FreeBSD 4.0 released 03/13/2000
2000	Caldera Systems Inc. announces that Caldera Systems has entered into agreement to acquire the SCO Server Software Division and the Professional Services Division.
2001	Linus Torvalds releases version 2.4 of the Linux Kernel source code on January 4th.
2001	Microsoft files a trademark suit against Lindows.com in December.
2004	Lindows changes it's name to Linspire April 14, 2004.
2004	The first release of Ubuntu is released October 20, 2004.