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Grace Murray was born.
Grace was born in New York City, NY. -
Curious Child
At the age of seven, she decided to determine how an alarm clock worked and dismantled several alarm clocks before her mother stopped her. -
Applied and Denied access to Vassar College
At age 16, she applied to Vassar College but was rejected due to her test scores in Latin being too low. -
Applied and Accepted into Vassar College
She applied for the second time a year after the first application, and was accepted. -
Graduated from Vassar College
Grace graduated from Vassar College with a bachelor's degree in mathematics and physics. -
Earned Master's Degree at Yale University
Grace earned her Master's degree at Yale University in the same field as she had previously earned her Bachelor's. -
Married (for now).
Married New York University Professor Vincent Foster Hopper. -
Earned Ph.D. in mathematics.
Grace continued her studies and received her Ph.D. in mathematics, also at Yale University. -
Denied access into Navy
Grace tried to enlist into the Navy early in World War II, but was rejected due to her older age (34) and her weight to height ratio was too low. -
Accepted/Enlisted into Navy
Hopper obtained a leave of absence from Vassar (where she now teaches) and was sworn into the United States Navy Reserve. -
Divorced
Divorced with Vincent Foster Hopper, and she never married again, however she decided to retain his surname. -
Most Famous Moment (Possibly)
While working on the Mark II Computer at her time in the US Navy Research lab in Virginia, her associates discovered a moth that was stuck in a relay. The moth impeded the operation of that very same relay, and they recorded an instance of a literal "debugging". This caused the term bug to spread throughout the computer science world and it is still frequently used to this day. -
Hired at Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation
Hopper became an employee at EMCC as a senior mathematician and joined the team in developing the UNIVAC I. -
Created Her First Compiler
Grace created her operational link-loader, which at the time was referred to as a compiler. It did not pick up any steam right away as people did not believe that a computer could do any thing more than just arithmetic. -
COBOL Attendance.
Grace attended the CODASYL, or Conference on Data Systems and Languages as a technical consultant to the committee. The new language COBOL, or Common Business-Oriented Language was defined at this event. -
Retirement(s) from Navy.
Grace retired from the Naval Reserve at the age of 60, with the rank of Commander. She was recalled in 1967 but again retired this time in 1971. Again, she returned in 1972 and received her final promotion to Captain in 1973, and she finally retired for permanently on August 14, 1986. -
Death
Grace Murray Hopper died in Arlington, Virginia at the age of 85.