ENIAC, the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer, was built at the University of Pennsylvania by John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert and publicly unveiled in 1946. It was commissioned by the United States Army to calculate artillery firing tables, using nearly 18,000 vacuum tubes. It was programmed by rewiring cables and setting switches, work done by a group of women mathematicians including Kay McNulty, Betty Jennings and Betty Snyder. It was among the first electronic general-purpose computers, and it also performed calculations for the hydrogen bomb programme. ENIAC was far faster than the mechanical machines before it and was in use until the middle of the 1950s.
Before and after
- 1946Founding of Honda
- 5 January 1946Birth of Diane Keaton
- 20 January 1946Birth of David Lynch
- 5 February 1946Birth of Charlotte Rampling
- 15 February 1946ENIAC
- from 30 March 1946 to 16 October 1949Greek Civil War
- 8 April 1946Founding of Federal University of Bahia
- 21 April 1946Death of John Maynard Keynes
- 30 April 1946Birth of Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden
More in Science & technology
- 25 April 1953Watson and Crick publish the structure of DNA
- 14 February 1961Discovery of lawrencium
- 20 November 1985Creation of Microsoft Windows
- 1996Discovery of copernicium
- August 2003Discovery of moscovium
- 2006Discovery of nihonium
The era
This moment belongs to the Contemporary world (1945 CE to today), the world since 1945. You can also browse everything in the 20th century.