--- type: Timeline title: A timeline of computer science description: Key dates in the history of computer science. resource: "https://computerscience.co.uk/history/timeline/" data: "https://computerscience.co.uk/data/timeline.json" sources: - { title: "Timeline of Computer History, Computer History Museum", url: "https://www.computerhistory.org/timeline/" } - { title: "Computer, Encyclopaedia Britannica", url: "https://www.britannica.com/technology/computer" } timestamp: "2026-07-10" --- # A timeline of computer science Key dates in the history of computer science, from the first mechanical designs to modern artificial intelligence. Each event has a stable id; the HTML page deep-links as `/history/timeline/#`. Also available as open data at [/data/timeline.json](/data/timeline.json) (CC BY 4.0). ## 1837: Babbage describes the Analytical Engine id: `1837-analytical-engine` Charles Babbage sets out the design for a general-purpose mechanical computer with a store for numbers and a mill to process them, anticipating the structure of the modern computer by more than a century. era: [/history/mechanical-computing/](/history/mechanical-computing/index.md), [/people/charles-babbage/](/people/charles-babbage/index.md) ## 1843: Lovelace writes the first published algorithm id: `1843-first-program` In her notes on the Analytical Engine, Ada Lovelace includes a method for computing Bernoulli numbers, widely regarded as the first published computer program, and argues that such a machine could do more than arithmetic. era: [/history/mechanical-computing/](/history/mechanical-computing/index.md), [/people/ada-lovelace/](/people/ada-lovelace/index.md), [/people/charles-babbage/](/people/charles-babbage/index.md) ## 1936: Turing defines the universal machine id: `1936-turing-machine` Alan Turing's paper "On Computable Numbers" introduces the Turing machine and proves that a single machine can compute anything computable, giving computer science its theoretical foundation. era: [/history/foundations/](/history/foundations/index.md), [/people/alan-turing/](/people/alan-turing/index.md) ## 1937: Shannon links logic to circuits id: `1937-shannon-circuits` Claude Shannon shows that Boolean algebra can describe electrical switching circuits, establishing the basis for all digital logic design. era: [/history/foundations/](/history/foundations/index.md), [/people/claude-shannon/](/people/claude-shannon/index.md) ## 1943: Colossus breaks ciphers at Bletchley Park id: `1943-colossus` Colossus, the first programmable electronic digital computer, begins operating at Bletchley Park to break German wartime ciphers. era: [/history/foundations/](/history/foundations/index.md) ## 1945: Von Neumann describes the stored-program computer id: `1945-stored-program` John von Neumann's "First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC" sets out the stored-program architecture, in which instructions and data share the same memory, used by almost every computer built since. era: [/history/foundations/](/history/foundations/index.md), [/people/john-von-neumann/](/people/john-von-neumann/index.md) ## 1946: ENIAC is unveiled id: `1946-eniac` ENIAC, the first general-purpose electronic digital computer, is completed at the University of Pennsylvania and revealed to the public. era: [/history/foundations/](/history/foundations/index.md) ## 1948-06-21: The Manchester Baby runs the first stored program id: `1948-manchester-baby` The Small-Scale Experimental Machine at the University of Manchester runs the world's first stored program, proving the von Neumann architecture in hardware. era: [/history/foundations/](/history/foundations/index.md) ## 1950: Turing proposes the imitation game id: `1950-turing-test` Turing's paper "Computing Machinery and Intelligence" asks whether machines can think and proposes the test now known as the Turing test. era: [/history/foundations/](/history/foundations/index.md), [/people/alan-turing/](/people/alan-turing/index.md) ## 1952: Hopper writes the first compiler id: `1952-first-compiler` Grace Hopper builds the A-0 system, the first compiler, which translates symbolic instructions into machine code and opens the way to high-level programming languages. era: [/history/programming-languages/](/history/programming-languages/index.md), [/people/grace-hopper/](/people/grace-hopper/index.md) ## 1956: The term "artificial intelligence" is coined id: `1956-artificial-intelligence` The Dartmouth Summer Research Project brings together the researchers who name and launch the field of artificial intelligence. era: [/history/programming-languages/](/history/programming-languages/index.md) ## 1957: FORTRAN is released id: `1957-fortran` IBM releases FORTRAN, the first widely used high-level programming language, making scientific computing accessible to non-specialists. era: [/history/programming-languages/](/history/programming-languages/index.md) ## 1958: McCarthy designs LISP id: `1958-lisp` John McCarthy creates LISP, a language built on recursion and symbolic processing that becomes central to artificial intelligence research. era: [/history/programming-languages/](/history/programming-languages/index.md) ## 1962: The first computer science department opens id: `1962-first-cs-department` Purdue University establishes the first department of computer science in the United States, marking the field's arrival as an academic discipline. era: [/history/programming-languages/](/history/programming-languages/index.md) ## 1965: Moore states his law id: `1965-moores-law` Gordon Moore observes that the number of transistors on a chip roughly doubles every two years, a trend later named Moore's law that guides the industry for decades. era: [/history/programming-languages/](/history/programming-languages/index.md) ## 1969: The first message crosses ARPANET id: `1969-arpanet` ARPANET carries its first message between two university computers, laying the groundwork for the internet. era: [/history/internet-age/](/history/internet-age/index.md) ## 1970: Codd publishes the relational model id: `1970-relational-model` Edgar Codd sets out the relational model for databases, the foundation of the SQL systems that store much of the world's data. era: [/history/programming-languages/](/history/programming-languages/index.md) ## 1971: Intel ships the first microprocessor id: `1971-microprocessor` The Intel 4004 puts a complete central processing unit on a single chip, starting the microprocessor era that leads to the personal computer. era: [/history/programming-languages/](/history/programming-languages/index.md) ## 1972: Ritchie creates the C language id: `1972-c-language` Dennis Ritchie develops C at Bell Labs. It becomes the language of operating systems and the ancestor of much of modern programming. era: [/history/programming-languages/](/history/programming-languages/index.md) ## 1983-01-01: The internet adopts TCP/IP id: `1983-tcp-ip` ARPANET switches to the TCP/IP protocol suite, the moment often cited as the birth of the modern internet. era: [/history/internet-age/](/history/internet-age/index.md) ## 1989: Berners-Lee proposes the World Wide Web id: `1989-world-wide-web` Tim Berners-Lee proposes the World Wide Web at CERN. The first website goes live in 1991 and the web soon reaches the public. era: [/history/internet-age/](/history/internet-age/index.md) ## 2012: Deep learning breaks through id: `2012-deep-learning` A neural network named AlexNet wins the ImageNet image-recognition competition by a wide margin, setting off the deep learning revolution in artificial intelligence. era: [/history/internet-age/](/history/internet-age/index.md) ## 2017: The transformer arrives id: `2017-transformer` The paper "Attention Is All You Need" introduces the transformer architecture, which underpins the large language models that follow. era: [/history/internet-age/](/history/internet-age/index.md) Up: [the history of computer science](/history/index.md)