The Linux Foundation on Wednesday kicked off its 20th anniversary celebrations with a video tribute to the story behind the open-source operating system and the promise of more commemorative goings-on for the rest of 2011.

The Linux Foundation on Wednesday kicked off its 20th anniversary celebrations with a video tribute to the story behind the open-source operating system (below) and the promise of more commemorative goings-on for the rest of 2011.

"Today Linux is literally everywhere: in your phone, at your ATM, in your TV, on your desktop, at the movies, in your car," wrote Amanda McPherson on a Linux.com blog post announcing the celebrations.

The foundation marks the summer of 1991 as the time when "Linus Torvalds made a bold decision to share his operating system with the world." Torvalds soon licensed that first Linux OS under the General Public License and, according to McPherson, "Nothing in computing has been the same since."

The Linux Foundation will commemorate the 20th anniversary of Linux at the Aug.17-19 LinuxCon in Vancouver, where the winner of the annual Linux Foundation Video Contest will be announced, and at LinuxCon Japan and other events.

Here's a snapshot of what else was happening in 1991:

EVENTS

Jan. 16-April 6: First Gulf War

Feb. 7: Haiti's first democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, sworn in

March 3: Amateur video captures Rodney King beating in Los Angeles

April 1: Comedy Central launched

May 21: Former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi assassinated

June 12: Boris Yeltsin elected president of Russia

June 23: Sega publishes first Sonic the Hedgehog game

July 1: Warsaw Pact officially dissolved

Aug. 6: Tim Berners-Lee announces the World Wide Web project

Aug. 19-Dec. 26: Dissolution of the Soviet Union

Oct. 2: Bill Clinton announces candidacy for president

Oct. 11-13: Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill hearings before Senate

Oct. 28-Nov. 4: 'Perfect Storm' immortalized by author Sebastian Junger strikes North Atlantic

Nov. 7: Los Angeles Lakers point guard Magic Johnson reveals he is HIV-positive

AWARDS & CULTURE

Best Picture, Oscars: The Silence of the Lambs

Top grossing film: Terminator 2: Judgment Day

Album of the Year, Grammies: Back on the Block, Quincy Jones

Top selling single: (Everything I Do) I Do It For You, Bryan Adams

Nobel Physics Prize: Pierre-Gilles de Gennes

Nobel Chemistry Prize: Richard R. Ernst

Nobel Physiology or Medicine Prize: Erwin Neher, Bert Sakmann

Nobel Literature Prize: Nadine Gordimer

Nobel Peace Prize: Aung San Suu Kyi

Nobel Economics Prize: Ronald Coase