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Bill Gates is born.
William Henry "Bill" Gates III was born in Seattle, Washington, to William H. Gates, Sr. and Mary Maxwell Gates. His parents were English, German, and Scotch-Irish. -
Bill Gates attends Lakeside School
Bill Gates becomes interested in computers at this school and this is also where he met Paul Allen. -
Bill Gates enrolls into Harvard Unversity
Bill Gates scored a 1590 out of 1600 on his SAT with an IQ of roughly about 170. At Harvard he met his future business partners such as Steve Ballmer, who later became CEO of microsoft. -
Bill Gates and Paul Allen form partnership called Micro-Soft
Gates and Allen saw the release of the MITS Altair 8800 based on the Intel 8080 CPU as the opportunity to start their own computer software company. -
Bill Gates writes "Open Letter to Hobbyists"
In the letter, Gates expressed frustration with most computer hobbyists who were using his company's Altair BASIC software without having paid for it. -
Microsoft opens international office in Japan
The company's first international office was founded on November 1, 1978, in Japan, titled "ASCII Microsoft" -
Microsoft partners with IBM
IBM approached Microsoft to write the BASIC interpreter for its upcoming personal computer. When IBM's representatives mentioned that they needed an operating system, Gates referred them to Digital Research. Who make the widely used CP/M operating system. IBM's discussions with Digital Research went poorly, and they did not reach a licensing agreement. IBM representative Jack Sams told Gates about the licensing difficulties and told him to get an acceptable operating system. -
Bill Gates becomes President of Microsoft
Gates was made President of Microsoft and Chairman of the Board after the company was re-incorporated in Washington. -
Bill Gates founds Corbis
Corbis Corporation is an American company, based in Seattle, Washington, that sells and distributes photography and film footage and related rights. It has a collection of more than 100 million images and a footage library. -
Bill Gates marries Melinda French
They have three children: Jennifer Katharine (1996), Rory John (1999) and Phoebe Adele (2002). The Gateses' home is an earth-sheltered house in the side of a hill overlooking Lake Washington in Medina, Washington. -
United States vs. Microsoft Trial
The United States filed a set of civil actions against Microsoft. -
Bill Gates Retires
Gates announced that he would be transitioning from full-time work at Microsoft to part-time work and full-time work at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Gates' last full-time day at Microsoft was June 27, 2008. He remains at Microsoft as non-executive chairman.
