Ada Lovelace wrote the first computer program in 1843, over 100 years before the first modern electronic computer was built.

Ada Lovelace worked with inventor Charles Babbage on his design for the Analytical Engine. This machine was designed to use gears and steam power to perform complex calculations. Lovelace wrote 'Note G,' which described a step-by-step process for the machine to calculate a sequence of numbers called Bernoulli numbers.This set of instructions is now considered the first computer program. Lovelace saw that the machine used symbols to represent numbers. She predicted that if symbols could represent other things, like musical notes, the machine could compose music.Her ideas were published in a scientific journal in 1843. She signed the work with only her initials, A.A.L., because women were often not taken seriously in science at that time. The machine she wrote for was never finished during her life because it was too expensive and complex.Her work was mostly forgotten for a century. In 1953, her notes were rediscovered and published again. In 1980, the United States Department of Defense named a new computer language 'Ada' to honor her contribution to history.