Grace Hopper

Grace Brewster Hopper was an American computer scientist, mathematician, and United States Navy rear admiral. She was a pioneer of computer programming. Hopper was the first to devise the theory of machine-independent programming languages, and used this theory to develop the FLOW-MATIC programming language and COBOL, an early high-level programming language still in use today. She was also one of the first programmers on the Harvard Mark I computer. She is credited with writing the first computer manual, “A Manual of Operation for the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator.”

9 December 1906

Born on the same birth date (9 December 1906): Freddy Martin

Born on the same birth day (9 December): Antoine Étienne de Tousard • Caroline Lucas • David Nathan (journalist) • Dennis Dunaway • Dick Butkus • Dimitrios Trichopoulos • Dobroslav Paraga • Douglas Fairbanks Jr. • Hikaru Nakamura • Ida S. Scudder • James Rainwater • Jeff Petry • Johann Joachim Winckelmann • John Dobson (architect) • Laura Salverson • Margaret Brundage • Mark Riddell • Martin de Porres • Neil Innes • Neslihan Demir • Ross Harrington • Saima Wazed • Stephen McPhail

Born in the same month (December 1906): Alziro Bergonzo • Carol Reed • Erika Fuchs • Ernst Ruska • Fernando Lopes-Graça • Franz Waxman • Freddy Martin • Harold Adamson • Jules Ladoumègue • Laurens van der Post • Leonid Brezhnev • Lew Grade • Oscar Levant • Peter Carl Goldmark • Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark • Russell C. Newhouse