June 29 Birthday
On June 29, 2007, the Apple iPhone went on sale. People lined up for days outside Apple stores. AT&T was the exclusive carrier. The first iPhone cost $499 for 4GB and $599 for 8GB. It had no app store, no copy-and-paste, no 3G, and no video recording. Steve Jobs had announced it six months earlier at Macworld. The phone was not the first smartphone — BlackBerry and Nokia had been making smartphones for years — but it was the first that put a full web browser and a touch interface in a consumer device. Within five years, half the phones sold in the world were smartphones. The iPhone redefined the category. The Globe Theatre burned down on June 29, 1613, during a performance of Shakespeare's Henry VIII. A theatrical cannon, fired to announce the king's entrance, ignited the thatched roof. No one was killed — one man's trousers caught fire and were extinguished with a bottle of ale. The Globe was rebuilt the following year with a tile roof. It was closed by the Puritans in 1642 and demolished in 1644. A replica, Shakespeare's Globe, opened near the original site in 1997. People born on June 29 fall under the zodiac sign of Cancer. The birthstone is Pearl and the birth flower is Rose. Historical events on June 29 include 1613: Shakespeare's Globe Theatre burns down during performance of Henry VIII, 1972: Supreme Court rules death penalty unconstitutional (Furman v. Georgia), 2007: Apple iPhone goes on sale in the United States. Famous people born on June 29 include Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900), Gary Busey (1944), Richard Lewis (1947).