The First Computer Programmer Was a Woman
Ada Lovelace wrote the world's first computer program in 1843, nearly 100 years before the first electronic computer was built.
About this fact
Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace, was a mathematician who worked with Charles Babbage on his Analytical Engine in the 1840s. While Babbage designed the machine, Lovelace wrote what is considered the first computer algorithm - a set of instructions for calculating Bernoulli numbers. More remarkably, she envisioned computers doing more than just mathematical calculations, predicting they could compose music and create art. Her notes were more extensive than Babbage's original paper, and she understood the machine's potential better than its inventor. Despite this groundbreaking work, her contributions were largely overlooked until the 1950s when her notes were republished.