Computer History - 1900 - 1940
| Year | Event |
| 1900 | Howard H. Aiken is born March 8, 1900. |
| 1900 | Nikola Tesla develops frequency hopping, now known as spread spectrum. |
| 1901 | The first radio message is sent across the Atlantic Ocean in Morse code. |
| 1901 | Hubert Cecil Booth receives a patent for the first powered vacuum cleaner August 30, 1901. |
| 1902 | 3M is founded. |
| 1903 | Wilbur and Orville Wright both take the first flight December 17, 1903. |
| 1903 | John von Neumann is born December 28, 1903. |
| 1903 | John Vincent Atanasoff is born October 4, 1903. |
| 1904 | John Ambrose Fleming creates the first commercial diode vacuum tube. |
| 1906 | The IEC is founded in London England. |
| 1906 | Reynold Johnson is born July 16, 1906. |
| 1906 | Philo Farnsworth is born August 19, 1906. |
| 1906 | Grace Hopper is born December 9, 1906. |
| 1907 | Lee De Frost files patent #879,532 on Jan 29, 1907 for the vacuum tube triode. This is later used as an electronic switch in the first electronic computer. |
| 1907 | IBM files for its first U.S. patent, #998,631 October 11, 1907. |
| 1908 | John Bardeen is born May 23, 1908. |
| 1908 | The film "A Visit To The Seaside" becomes the first film commercially produced in natural color in December of 1908. |
| 1910 | William Shockley is born February 13, 1910. |
| 1910 | Konrad Zuse is born June 22, 1910. |
| 1910 | Henry Babbage, Charles Babbage's youngest son completes a portion of the Analytical Engine and was able to perform basic calculations. |
| 1911 | Company now known as IBM on is founded June 16, 1911 in the state of New York as the Computing - Tabulating - Recording Company (C-T-R), a consolidation of the Computing Scale Company, and The International Time Recording Company. |
| 1911 | IBM is granted its first patent #998,631 July 25, 1911. |
| 1912 | Alan Turing is born June 23, 1912. |
| 1912 | David Packard is born September 7, 1912. |
| 1912 | G. N. Lewis begins work on the lithium battery. |
| 1913 | William Hewlett is born May 20, 1913. |
| 1913 | Maurice Wilkes is born June 26, 1913. |
| 1914 | Thomas Watson is born January 14, 1919. |
| 1915 | The first telephone call is made across the continent. |
| 1918 | Panasonic is founded March 18, 1918. |
| 1918 | Jay Forrester is born July 14, 1918. |
| 1919 | Nathan Rochester is born January 14, 1919. |
| 1919 | Olympus is established on October 12, 1919 by Takeshi Yamashita. |
| 1920 | Bob Bemer is born February 8, 1920. |
| 1920 | First radio broadcasting begins in United States, Pittsburgh, PA. |
| 1921 | Czech playwright Karel Capek coins the term "robot" in the 1921 play RUR (Rossum's Universal Robots). |
| 1921 | The first Radio Shack store is open. |
| 1922 | MPAA is established. |
| 1922 | Alan Perlis is born April 1, 1922. |
| 1922 |
Keith Uncapher is born April 1, 1922. |
| 1923 | Eugene Kleiner is born. |
| 1923 | Jack St. Clair Kilby, Nobel Prize winner and inventor of the Integrated Circuit, handheld calculator, and thermal printer is born November 8, 1923. |
| 1924 | The Computing - Tabulating - Recording (C-T-R) company is renamed to IBM on February 14, 1924. |
| 1925 | John Backus is born December 3, 1994. |
| 1925 | Douglas Engelbart is born January 30, 1925. |
| 1927 | Marvin Minsky is born August 9, 1927. |
| 1927 | Philo Taylor Farnsworth becomes the first person to successfully transmit a TV signal on September 7, 1927. |
| 1925 | Seymour Cray is born September 28, 1925. |
| 1926 | John Kemeny is born May 31, 1926. |
| 1927 | Robert Noyce is born December 12, 1927. |
| 1928 | September 25, 1928, The Galvin Manufacturing Corporation begins, the company will later be known as Motorola. |
| 1928 | Martin Cooper is born December 26, 1928. |
| 1929 | Gordon Moore is born January 3, 1929. |
| 1930 | Edsger Dijkstra is born May 11, 1930. |
| 1930 | Galvin Manufacturing Corporation Auto radios begin to be sold as an accessory for the automobile. Paul Galvin coins the name Motorola for the company's new products, linking the ideas of motion and radio. |
| 1930 | Citizen is founded. |
| 1932 | Jay Glenn Miner is born May 31, 1932. |
| 1933 | Canon is established. |
| 1934 | Leonard Kleinrock is born June 13, 1934. |
| 1934 | The FCC is established. |
| 1934 | The US Communication Act goes into place. |
| 1935 | The Polygraph machine aka lie detector is used for the first time. |
| 1935 | Roger Needham is born February 9, 1935. |
| 1936 | Germanys Konrad Zuse creates the Z1, one of the first binary digital computers and a machine that could be controlled through a punch tape. |
| 1936 | Dvorak receives a patent for the Dvorak keyboard May 12, 1936. |
| 1936 | Henry F. Phillips receives patent for the Phillips screw and screwdriver July 7, 1936. |
| 1936 | Jerry Sanders is born September 12, 1936 |
| 1936 | Alan Turing develops the Turing Machine. |
| 1937 | Iowa State Colleges John Vincent Atanasoff and Clifford Berry begin work on creating the binary-based ABC (Atanasoft-Berry Computer). Considered by most to be the first electronic digital computer. |
| 1937 | Alec Reeves develops PCM. |
| 1937 | Ted Nelson, who coined the term HTTP is born in 1937. |
| 1938 | The company no known as Hewlett Packard creates its first product the HP 200A. |
| 1938 | Chester Carlson produces first electrophotographic image October 22, 1938, which later becomes the Xerox machine. |
| 1938 | Orson Welles and Houseman broadcast H.G. Welles War of the Worlds on the airways October 30th as a Halloween spoof. |
| 1938 | BBC creates the first science fiction television program. |
| 1939 | George Stibitz completes the Complex Number Calculator capable of adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing complex numbers. This device provides a foundation for digital computers. |
| 1939 | The first Radio Shack catalog is published. |
| 1939 | Charles Geschke is born September 11, 1939. |
| 1939 | Iowa State Colleges John Vincent Atanasoff and Clifford Berry create a prototype of the binary-based ABC (Atanasoft-Berry Computer). |
| 1939 | Hewlett Packard is found by William Hewlett and David Packard. The name is decided on the flip of a coin toss. |