Women and their Incredible Inventions

7. Grace Murray Hopper-Compiler and COBOL Computer Language

Charles Babbage, Alan Turing etc are some of the names which comes to our mind when we think about development in the world of computer technology and most of us are not aware about Grace Murray Hopper. While Hopper was working in the military, she worked on IBM's Harvard Mark I computer, the first large-scale computer in America and in 1959 she introduced to the world a prominent computer language, COBOL (common business oriented language) which happens to be one of the earliest high-level programming languages. Hopper was of inquisitive nature from childhood onwards and this resulted in her dismantling nearly seven clocks in her house, just to find out how it works! This curiosity is very well reflected in her inventions, which includes a compiler as well, translating English commands into computer code.