Timeline September 2003

Events in September 2003 14

• 1902 – 2003 Leni Riefenstahl (1902-2003) Died 8 September 2003, aged 101 Leni Riefenstahl was a film-maker whose technically innovative documentaries 'Triumph of the Will' and 'Olympia' glorified Nazi Germany. After the war she was widely shunned and spent decades defending herself against charges of complicity. She later worked as a stills and underwater photographer.
• 1908 – 2003 Edward Teller (1908-2003) Died 9 September 2003, aged 95 Edward Teller was a Hungarian-born physicist often called the father of the hydrogen bomb, which he championed within the US weapons programme. His testimony against J. Robert Oppenheimer in 1954 alienated many colleagues. He remained an advocate of nuclear weapons and missile defence into old age.
• 1909 – 2003 Elia Kazan (1909-2003) Died 28 September 2003, aged 94 Elia Kazan was a stage and film director who co-founded the Actors Studio and directed 'A Streetcar Named Desire', 'On the Waterfront' and 'East of Eden'. His decision to name former Communist associates before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1952 divided Hollywood for the rest of his life.
• 1925 – 2003 Donald O'Connor (1925-2003) Died 27 September 2003, aged 78 Donald O'Connor was a dancer, singer and actor who began in vaudeville as a child. He is best remembered for his acrobatic solo number in the film 'Singin' in the Rain' and for a series of comedies co-starring a talking mule named Francis.
• 1927 – 2003 Slim Dusty (1927-2003) Died 19 September 2003, aged 76 Slim Dusty was an Australian country singer whose career spanned nearly 60 years and more than 100 albums. His 1957 recording 'A Pub with No Beer' was the first Australian record to sell a million copies internationally, and he became a national institution.
• 1927 – 2003 Althea Gibson (1927-2003) Died 28 September 2003, aged 76 Althea Gibson was the first Black tennis player to compete at and win Grand Slam titles, taking the French, Wimbledon and US singles championships between 1956 and 1958. She later became the first Black player on the women's professional golf tour.
• 1932 – 2003 Johnny Cash American singer-songwriter, "The Man in Black" Johnny Cash (1932-2003) was an American singer-songwriter whose stark baritone, songs of faith, hardship and redemption, and lifelong identification with prisoners and the poor made him one of the most influential artists in American music. The only artist inducted into the Country Music, Rock and Roll, Songwriters, and Gospel Music Halls of Fame, he sold over 90 million records across a career spanning five decades.
• 1935 – 2003 Edward Said (1935-2003) Died 25 September 2003, aged 67 Edward Said was a literary scholar at Columbia University whose 1978 book 'Orientalism' reshaped the study of how the West depicts the East and helped found postcolonial studies. A Palestinian-American, he was also a leading advocate for Palestinian rights and an accomplished pianist.
• 1947 – 2003 Warren Zevon (1947-2003) Died 7 September 2003, aged 56 Warren Zevon was a singer-songwriter known for sardonic, literate rock songs including 'Werewolves of London' and 'Lawyers, Guns and Money'. After a terminal cancer diagnosis he recorded a final album, 'The Wind', released two weeks before his death.
• 1948 – 2003 John Ritter (1948-2003) Died 11 September 2003, aged 54 John Ritter was a comic actor best known for the sitcom 'Three's Company', which ran from 1977 to 1984, and later '8 Simple Rules'. He died suddenly of an undiagnosed aortic dissection while at work on his television series, a week before his 55th birthday.
• 1949 – 2003 Robert Palmer (1949-2003) Died 26 September 2003, aged 54 Robert Palmer was an English singer known for a smooth, soulful voice and a sharply tailored image, with hits including 'Addicted to Love' and 'Simply Irresistible'. He also recorded with the group Power Station. He died of a heart attack in Paris.
• 2003 AMD64 — 64-bit computing for everyone AMD introduces the Athlon 64 processor in September 2003, featuring AMD64 — a 64-bit extension to the x86 instruction set that allows processors to address more than 4GB of RAM while remaining fully compatible with existing 32-bit software. Intel initially dismisses 64-bit x86 computing for clients, pursuing its separate Itanium architecture instead. But AMD64's backward compatibility and performance make it the obvious choice. Intel is forced to implement AMD64 in its own processors (calling it EM64T) — paying AMD royalties on every Intel 64-bit processor sold to this day.
• 2003 Johnny Cash dies in Nashville 12 September 2003, aged 71 Johnny Cash died on 12 September 2003 at the age of 71, at Baptist Hospital in Nashville, from complications of diabetes that led to respiratory failure — just four months after June's death, a span widely seen as evidence of the depth of their bond.
• 2003 Steam launched Valve launches its digital game platform Valve launched Steam, at first as a way to deliver updates to its own games. It grew into the dominant digital storefront for personal computer games and reshaped how the industry sold and distributed software.