A timeline of computer history

A detailed interactive timeline of technology since 1500

Tech devices are heirs to a complex history of both technological invention and social history. What if you could visualize how radio, TVs, and other devices are connected to the past and each other? Trace the elaborate genealogies of your phone and computer with this interactive timeline showing tech inventions since 1500.

All computers are defined by their ability to input, store, process, and output data

From wooden machines to wearable tech, computers have changed a lot in appearance, but they all still perform the same essential tasks. Early computers were made of wood and metal—some were so big that they filled entire rooms just to solve simple math problems.

See a gallery of the early years of CES

This gallery showcases rare photos from the early decades of CES, featuring early personal computers and the first handheld cassette players. See how the world’s biggest tech show began and grew.

The first computers performed calculations using lightbulb-like tubes

Before transistors, the first electronic computers relied on vacuum tubes—components that switched signals on and off. Despite machines like ENIAC—the first programmable, general-purpose, electronic computer—utilizing nearly 18,000 tubes that generated massive amounts of heat and frequent failures, they laid the foundation for modern computing hardware.

Today's massive data centers evolved from single-room mainframes

Punch card computers from the late 1940s were used to store and process a company's data locally before the advent of desktop computers. As the amount of data and company sizes increased alongside the miniaturization of technology, mainframes were replaced by local server rooms and external facilities with interconnected servers running cloud-based and AI software.

Explore an online gallery highlighting the importance of graphical user interfaces

Before the Macintosh, computers were primarily used in offices and required users to type complex commands to perform tasks. Apple followed the device with the LaserWriter printer, bringing graphic production to at-home artists and designers.

Explore a visual timeline of fintech’s history and growth

From the debut of the world’s first ATM in 1967, to Apple Pay launching in 2014, financial technologies have come a very long way in a relatively short historical period. A colorful visual timeline highlights some of the most important milestones along the way.

A brief history of artificial intelligence

The concept of artificial intelligence and what it may mean for humanity has evolved as computer technologies have grown increasingly powerful through the decades. Beginning with the first (massive) computers in the 1940s, scientists have sought to make the machines as intelligent as humans. But it wasn't until computing power made exponential gains have computers begun to imitate human behavior.

Computer scientists first started trying to optimize dating using computers in the 1950s

Although early dating sites like Match.com weren't launched until the 1990s, the history of dating apps dates arguably back to the mid-1900s when computer scientists used IBM computers to solve matchmaking and compatibility problems.

Tracing the evolution of mobile phones

The first cell phone was created in 1973, with a 2.4-pound handset and a battery life of about 30 minutes. Since then, pretty much everything about it has drastically changed, with more than 5 billion cellphone users across the globe (that's more than half of the world population). Learn about the evolution of the mobile phone and where the technology may go in the future with this four minute video.

The history of infographics: cave art to interactive visuals

When did humans first create infographics? This article and related infographics detail how artistic data representations have evolved alongside humans and other hominins. The roots of infographics can be traced back to cave paintings, such as...

The history of malware includes computer viruses, worms, trojans, and ransomware

Some of the earliest significant pieces of malware—the Creeper worm and the Elk Cloner virus—displayed silly messages to users without causing major harm. As computer science has advanced, malware has become more easily spread, incorporated social engineering to manipulate users, targeted infrastructure systems, and been used by governments for virtual espionage.

The Antikythera mechanism: The oldest-known analog computer

A device now considered the world's oldest computer was pulled from a shipwreck more than 120 years ago. Known as the "Antikythera Mechanism," it is now believed to have allowed precise tracking of astronomical positions, and its sophistication overturned understanding of Ancient Greek capabilities.

Crypto's origins date back to 1983

While crypto feels new, it actually dates to 1983, with eCash's creation. However, a lot has happened in the crypto world over the past few years in particular—crypto's market cap surpassed $2T for the first time in 2021, for instance. A timeline of crypto's history details the events in between.

The history of China: a timeline

How long has China existed, and how and when did it evolve into its form? Explore the journey of China from empire to republic (to a republic, again) in this timeline. Archaeological evidence suggests the earliest Chinese dynasty formed at about...

Moore's Law came from observing exponential computing growth in the 1960s

In 1965, Gordon Moore, cofounder of Intel Corporation, observed a four-year trend of constant growth rate in computing power. Hypothesizing the trend would continue, his observation became the benchmark that the computing industry has worked to maintain for 60 years.

One of Apple's first computers sold for $375K at an auction

An operational Apple I, the first model of personal computer made by Apple, sold for $375K at an auction. The machine was first sold in 1976 and has a handwritten serial number by Steve Jobs himself. The auction, provided rare insight into the beginnings of the influential tech company.

Visualize the 5,000-year history of consumer credit in one infographic

Consumer loans for agriculture were likely first used around 3500 BCE, but modern consumer credit took many more centuries to be established. England's credit reporting system, for instance, dates back to the early 1800s when a group of English tailors began swapping information about customers who failed to settle their debts.

The origin of the World Wide Web, plus a look at its first website and web browser

Invented by Tim Berners-Lee in 1989 while working at CERN—home of the world's largest particle physics laboratory—the Web was developed to facilitate the sharing of information among scientists at institutions worldwide. By the end of 1990, the first Web server was operational as a proof-of-concept on a NeXT workstation.

Explore a multimedia timeline of Communism’s global rise and collapse

This timeline from The Washington Post traces the spread of Communism—from revolutions and Cold War flashpoints to movements in China, Cuba, Korea, and Vietnam—using archival photos and key moments to chart the ideology’s dramatic ascent and worldwide decline.

From the Big Bang to present—a timeline

A timeline for everything, from the Big Bang to the beginnings of life on Earth. This article lays out, in spans of billions of years, what was happening in the universe as it became the universe. Starting from the Planck era, the earliest known meaningful time, to the probable "Big Crunch" 30 billion years from now, see how the universe has existed and persisted.

The virtual reality era has finally arrived

The smartphone era has driven a large share of the consumer electronics market for almost 20 years now. But what comes next? Dominant computing platforms come and go over time, and there’s reason to believe that mixed reality devices like headsets and glasses might be the form factor that eventually replaces smartphones. This article presents a snapshot of where we are right now in the VR era, and what the future holds.

The first comic strip appeared in American newspapers in 1895

This video traces the evolution of the comic book from early newspaper strips to the Golden, Silver, and Modern Ages—highlighting milestones such as the debut of Superman in 1938 and Marvel’s humanized heroes of the 1960s and marking their rise as cultural icons.

Charting the most popular email providers since 1997

The email is the most stable feature of the Internet; a rare digital product that changed little over the decades. Nonetheless, the major email service providers have vastly shifted. Watch this time-based chart which shows the number of users of the top 10 email providers since 1997, and see how totally nonexistent Gmail skyrockets to dominance by today.

English mathematician Ada Lovelace wrote the first computer algorithm a century before computers existed and hypothesized that computing devices would one day be able to compose music—foreseeing the generative AI systems of today.

The history of Linux, from the UNIX wars to the hundreds of Linux operating systems of today

Amid conflicts over standardizing and controlling various versions of UNIX—an operating system developed at Bell Labs and owned by AT&T—the GNU Project was announced to create a free, open-source OS. Originally designed for Intel's 386 CPU under the name "Freax," Linus Torvalds Linux kernel would be combined with GNU Project software and customized by growing numbers of developers into many OSes, each tailored to specific computing needs.

The name 'Silicon Valley' arose from the founding of Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Fairchild Semiconductor in 1956-57, founded near Stanford University in Palo Alto

The history of many kitchen appliances involves unexpected discoveries and applications, including wartime radar turned hamster defroster and replacing an 'ice king' with heat-stealing boxes.

In 2019, a laptop loaded with six of the worst malware in history and described as 'an exhibit of historical weaponry' sold for $1.3M.

Hear about the 250-year history of the United States Postal Service, complete with some of its strangest deliveries, important innovations, and the figures that made it an American institution.

Visualize the path of every solar eclipse from 1900 to 2099 and see what each looks like when observed from different locations on Earth.

See the most iconic photos from four decades of LIFE magazine

See how each of the more than two million known species relates to each other—and to common ancestors—in this zoomable tree of life.

Trace how the Bill of Rights, inspired by centuries of political theory, took shape between 1774 and 1789.

Memecoins are a type of cryptocurrency—a form of digital currency with a wide variety of uses—created around popular 'memes,' or viral internet jokes.

Hear 50 years of iconic hip-hop samples, the genre's foundational looped tracks

Radioactive elements can introduce software errors because the ionizing radiation they produce can detach electrons from atoms, and computer code relies on the distribution of electrons.

Electrical grids worldwide must double their power delivery capacity by 2050 to meet surging demand from AI and electric vehicles.

The first horror movie is believed to be George Méliès' 1986 short 'The Haunted Castle,' which pioneered the use of special effects

The United States has had a tumultuous relationship with Cuba since its 1959 revolution, highlighted by a nuclear crisis and a decades-long trade embargo.

As of 2025, the most cited papers in science include a review of graphene, methods to improve image recognition, streamlining electron density calculations, and optimizing protein studies.

According to the physics of black holes, our 4D reality may be a hologram—a projection of information coded on a 2D surface on the edge of the universe.

Chaos theory—informally known as the butterfly effect—is the reason why weather forecasts are presented with probabilities rather than certainties.

While the first exchange-traded fund (a 'basket' of different assets that can be bought and sold on a stock exchange) in the US only launched in 1993, the global ETF market has grown to more than $10T in the short time since.

Alzheimer's can lead to brain shrinkage, with an average of around 2% of volume reduction per year

The first steps to rebuilding your credit score include getting to know exactly what's on your credit report and figuring out how far you are from the '700 club,' or 'good score' range.

US housing costs have risen by roughly 175% between 1991 and 2026—but a growing number of Gen Zers are becoming homeowners anyway. In 2025, 4% of homebuyers were Gen Z, up from 3% the year before.

Graffiti dates back to at least ancient Pompeii, where citizens scrawled messages to one another on public walls

Some researchers have labeled nomophobia, the fear of being without your phone, as 'the phobia of the 21st century.'

For centuries, it was common to sleep in two shifts: a few hours at the beginning of the night, and a longer period beginning around midnight