The most viewed photograph in history turns 30. Here’s how Bill Gates was involved

Plastered across screens in offices, schools and homes globally, Bliss is one of the best-known images in the world.

Originally titled Bucolic Green Hills, the now iconic Windows desktop background was taken by former National Geographic photographer Charles O’Rear in a wine-growing region of California in January 1996, making it 30 years old this year.

The story of this ubiquitous image pops up occasionally on a click-baity website, usually with a headline declaring you “won’t believe what the hill looks like today”. 

Before-and-after pictures contrast the well-known photograph’s verdant pasture with the hill five, 10, 20 years on, now carpeted in rows of browning vines and a grey autumn sky.

But far more has changed in the last 30 years than just the agricultural conditions of one hill in Sonoma County, California.

The desktop

When Microsoft…