naure.com
HistorySurprise 4/5Difficulty 2/5Reviewed on September 17, 2026

The first computer programmer in history was a woman from the nineteenth century.

Why it is true

Ada Lovelace wrote the first algorithm intended to be processed by a machine, Charles Babbage s Analytical Engine, in the eighteen forties. Her visionary work anticipated modern computing by more than a century.

Source: Computer History Museum

Would you rather be asked first?

This is the reading side of the site, so the answer is in the sentence above — that is the whole point of it. Test yourself works the other way round: the question comes on its own, and the fact and the explanation only appear once you have answered.

Test yourself →10-question challenge

Related facts

More in History

See all →