19 years ago today
Steve Jobs Unveils the First iPhone
On January 9, 2007, Steve Jobs walked onto the stage at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco and announced that Apple was introducing three revolutionary products: a widescreen iPod with touch controls, a revolutionary mobile phone, and a breakthrough internet device. Then came the punchline — they were all one thing. The iPhone combined a multi-touch screen, an internet browser, and a phone into a single device that fit in your pocket. In the audience, industry veterans who had spent careers building keyboards and styluses watched as Jobs demonstrated scrolling, pinching, and tapping with bare fingers. Within a decade, the smartphone had remade photography, navigation, banking, social media, news consumption, and the fabric of daily human attention. The device Jobs unveiled that morning is widely considered the most consequential consumer product of the 21st century.
On the record: Steve Jobs
This day, across time
- 1349EventBasel Jews Massacred During Black Death Panic
- 1431EventTrial of Joan of Arc Begins
- 1788EventConnecticut Ratifies the U.S. Constitution
- 1793EventFirst Balloon Flight in the United States
- 1806EventLord Nelson's State Funeral at St Paul's
- 1839EventThe Daguerreotype Is Announced to the World
- 1854BornJennie Jerome
- 1859BornCarrie Chapman Catt
- 1873DiedNapoleon III
- 1878EventUmberto I Becomes King of Italy
- 1878DiedVictor Emmanuel II of Italy
- 1908BornSimone de Beauvoir
- 1913BornRichard Nixon
- 1916EventAllied Forces Complete Gallipoli Evacuation
- 1923DiedKatherine Mansfield
- 1941BornJoan Baez
- 1957EventAnthony Eden Resigns as British Prime Minister
- 1992EventFirst Planets Outside the Solar System Discovered
- 1995DiedPeter Cook
- 2007FeaturedSteve Jobs Unveils the First iPhone
Alive in 2007
OverlapSame years; not influence
Steve Jobsturned 52 this year
Kofi Annanturned 69 this year
Margaret Thatcherturned 82 this year
Nelson Mandelaturned 89 this year
Wangari Maathaiturned 67 this year
Step into the moment
Simulation · scenario
Before the iPhone Reveal
Moscone West, San Francisco
Steve Jobs, January 9, 2007. A simulation set on this date. The figure doesn’t know how the day ends.
Plus view — Scenes are part of Plus
Step into the sceneOn This Day in History
10 EventsBasel Jews Massacred During Black Death Panic
Hundreds of Jewish residents of Basel, Switzerland were rounded up and burned alive by townspeople who blamed them for the Black Death plague sweeping Europe. The pogrom was one of hundreds carried out across the continent during the pandemic years.
Trial of Joan of Arc Begins
The ecclesiastical trial of Joan of Arc commenced in Rouen, France, presided over by the English-aligned Bishop Pierre Cauchon. After months of questioning on theology and her divine visions, she would be burned at the stake in May — and later canonized as a saint.
Connecticut Ratifies the U.S. Constitution
Connecticut became the fifth state to ratify the United States Constitution, bringing the new federal framework one step closer to the nine-state threshold required for it to take effect.
First Balloon Flight in the United States
French aeronaut Jean-Pierre Blanchard completed the first balloon flight in the United States, ascending from Philadelphia's Walnut Street Prison yard. President George Washington was among the spectators who watched the hydrogen balloon rise and drift over the Delaware River into New Jersey.
Lord Nelson's State Funeral at St Paul's
Admiral Horatio Nelson, killed at the Battle of Trafalgar in October 1805, received a full state funeral and burial at St Paul's Cathedral in London. Hundreds of thousands of mourners lined the streets as the hero of Trafalgar was interred beneath the cathedral's dome.
The Daguerreotype Is Announced to the World
The French Academy of Sciences formally announced Louis Daguerre's photographic process to a packed audience in Paris. The daguerreotype — the first practical photographic technology — immediately captured global imagination and launched the age of photography.
Umberto I Becomes King of Italy
Following the death of Victor Emmanuel II, his son Umberto I ascended the Italian throne. He would reign for 22 years until his assassination in 1900, presiding over Italy's colonial ambitions in Africa and its turbulent early industrial period.
Allied Forces Complete Gallipoli Evacuation
The last Allied troops were evacuated from the Gallipoli Peninsula, concluding the disastrous eight-month campaign against the Ottoman Empire. The battle cost over 100,000 lives on each side and ended in an Ottoman victory, cementing Mustafa Kemal's reputation and shaping the future of Turkey.
Anthony Eden Resigns as British Prime Minister
British Prime Minister Anthony Eden resigned following the humiliating failure of the Suez Crisis, in which Britain and France were forced to withdraw their forces from Egypt after pressure from the United States and the Soviet Union. Eden was succeeded by Harold Macmillan.
First Planets Outside the Solar System Discovered
Astronomers Aleksander Wolszczan and Dale Frail announced the discovery of two planets orbiting pulsar PSR 1257+12 — the first confirmed detection of extrasolar planets in history. Though orbiting a dead star, the discovery proved planets could exist beyond our solar system.
Born on This Day
Simone de Beauvoir
French Philosopher & Author
One of the founding figures of modern feminism and existentialist philosophy, de Beauvoir wrote The Second Sex (1949), a foundational text arguing that womanhood is a social construct rather than a biological destiny. Her decades-long intellectual partnership with Jean-Paul Sartre shaped 20th-century thought across philosophy, literature, and politics.
Richard Nixon
37th President of the United States
Nixon served as president from 1969 to 1974, achieving landmark foreign policy breakthroughs including the opening of relations with China and détente with the Soviet Union. His presidency ended in resignation over the Watergate scandal — the only time a sitting U.S. president has resigned from office.
Carrie Chapman Catt
Women's Suffrage Leader
A driving force behind the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920, which granted American women the right to vote, Catt served twice as president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association and founded the League of Women Voters. Her decades of organizing were central to one of democracy's great expansions.
Joan Baez
Folk Singer & Civil Rights Activist
One of the defining voices of the 1960s folk revival and the civil rights movement, Baez marched alongside Martin Luther King Jr. at Selma and sang "We Shall Overcome" at countless demonstrations. Her crystalline soprano and fearless moral commitment made her an enduring icon of protest music.
Jennie Jerome
American-Born Mother of Winston Churchill
Born in Brooklyn, New York, Jennie Jerome married British Lord Randolph Churchill and gave birth to Winston Churchill in 1874. Vivacious and politically engaged, she was widely credited with driving her son's ambitions and using her transatlantic social connections to advance his early career.
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Napoleon III
Emperor of France (r. 1852–1870)
France's first elected president and last monarch, Napoleon III modernized Paris under Baron Haussmann, oversaw France's industrial expansion, and lost the Franco-Prussian War catastrophically — ending both the Second Empire and his reign. He died in exile in England following surgery.
Katherine Mansfield
New Zealand Short Story Writer
One of the most innovative short story writers of the modernist era, Mansfield transformed the form with her stream-of-consciousness technique and psychological depth. She died of tuberculosis in France at only 34, leaving behind a small but enormously influential body of work.
Peter Cook
English Comedian & Writer
Widely considered the greatest satirist Britain ever produced, Cook co-wrote and performed with Dudley Moore in the groundbreaking revue Beyond the Fringe, pioneered modern British satire, and influenced every comic who followed. His premature death at 57 robbed the world of an irreplaceable voice.
Victor Emmanuel II of Italy
First King of unified Italy
Victor Emmanuel II, who had served as King of Sardinia before the Risorgimento, died in Rome in 1878 as the first king of a unified Italian state. His partnership with Count Cavour and his support for Garibaldi's campaigns made Italian unification possible.
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