The first computer program was written a century before any computer existed
While translating an Italian article about Charles Babbage's proposed Analytical Engine in 1843, Ada Lovelace added her own notes three times longer than the original text — including an algorithm to compute Bernoulli numbers, now recognized as the first published computer program. She also grasped that such a machine could manipulate symbols of any kind, not just numbers, anticipating computing's broader potential by a century.