Timeline - Grace Hopper

By mattlag
  • Grace Hopper was born in New York City

    Grace Hopper was born in New York City

  • Earned her Ph.D. Mathmatics from Yale

    Earned her Ph.D. Mathmatics from Yale

    Grace Hopper also graduated Yale with a masters in mathematics, and also earned degrees in math and physics from Vassar College.
  • Joined the US Navy WAVES (Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service

    Joined the US Navy WAVES (Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service

    Decided to join the Navy after Pearl Harbor. She was rejected however was later accepted into The US Navy Reserves WAVES after receiving a waiver for her age and size.
  • Worked on the Mark I: A prototype of an electric computer

    Worked on the Mark I: A prototype of an electric computer

    She was commissioned as a US Navy Lieutenant (Junior Grade) and assigned to Bureau of Ordnance Computation Project where she worked on the project, and wrote the 500 page Manual of Operations for the Automatic Sequence-Controlled Calculator. Coined the word "Bug".
  • Joined the UNIVAC team

    Joined the UNIVAC team

    Joined the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation and was involved in the creation of UNIVAC I.
  • Began working on English programming complier

    Began working on English programming complier

    She was met with objections that this idea would work, but worked on it anyways.
  • FLOW-MATIC programming language in use

    FLOW-MATIC programming language in use

    The English language compiler began being used by her team. She also showed that programming in non English languages also worked!
  • Lectured at Penn, George Washington University, and for the U.S. Naval Reserve

    Lectured at Penn, George Washington University, and for the U.S. Naval Reserve

  • Co-developed the COBOL programming language

    Co-developed the COBOL programming language

    Member of the Conference on Data Systems Languages (CODASYL) conference which culminated into COBOL.
  • Retired from Navy Reserves and Recalled to Active Duty

    Retired from Navy Reserves and Recalled to Active Duty

    Forced retired from the Navy Reserves due to age limits. However, the US Navy recalled her into active duty service to standardize the Navy computers and programming languages.
  • COBOL becomes the most used programming language in the world

    COBOL becomes the most used programming language in the world

  • Retired from UNIVAC

    Retired from UNIVAC

  • Retired from the US Navy

    Retired from the US Navy

    Retired as a Rear-Admiral at the age of 79, and was oldest serving member of the US armed forces.
  • Awarded the Defense Distinguished Service Medal

    Awarded the Defense Distinguished Service Medal

    Highest medal achievable in the US military by those that did not see combat.
  • Awarded National Medal of Technology

    Awarded National Medal of Technology

    Awarded by President George H.W. Bush: “for her pioneering accomplishments in the development of computer programming languages that simplified computer technology and opened the door to a significantly larger universe of users.”