Throughout modern history, technology has taken parts in progressive and innovative movements that helped every society and our lives improve. This is a timeline of important events in computer technology that I both learned about and know along the way:

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19th Century

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• 1833-1871: Charles Babbage, a British mathematician designed the Analytical Engine which gave birth to the programmable computer concept.

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• 1890: Herman Hollerith, founder of IBM, designs the punch card system to calculate the 1880 U.S census report.

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20th Century

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• 1941: English computer scientist and mathematician, Alan Turing developed machines to break the Nazi Enigma military code in Bletchley Park.

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• 1942: Physics and mathematics professor, J.V. Atanasoff and graduate student, Clifford Berry design a computer that solved 29 equations at exactly the same time. The first storage of information in the main memory of a computer.

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• 1953: Grace Hopper develops the first computer language, COBOL (Common Business Oriented Language) that is used for commerce.

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• 1954: Fortran is developed. It is a high level programming language used for scientific computations.

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• 1958: Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce create the integrated circuit computer chip. An integrated circuit is formed on a small piece of semi-conducting material and performs similar function as a larger circuit.

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• 1964: Douglas Englebart creates a prototype of the modern computer complete with the mouse and graphical user interface. The start of the idea of more accessible machines. 

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• 1969-1970: The multiuser operating system, UNIX is developed at Bell Labs. It is written in the C programming language, and was widely used in government and large companies. The first Dynamic Access Memory Chip, Intel 1103 was created.

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• 1971: Alan Shugart and other IBM engineers create the floppy disk enabling the sharing of data between computers.

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• 1973: Ethernet, a system for connecting a number of computers to form a local network with protocols to control the passing of information. Created by Robert Metcalfe of the research staff at Xerox.

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• Between 1974 and 1977, personal computers started to be on the market such as the Commodore Personal Electronic Transactor and the professional, IBM 5100

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• 1976: Apple Inc. is founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne. The Apple Computer 1 was invented and discontinued in 1977.

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• 1977: Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak incorporate Apple and developed the Apple 2 with display of color graphics hence the colorful Apple logo.

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• 1979: Word processing is invented and MicroPro develops WordStar.

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• 1981: IBM's "Acorn" is developed with Microsoft's MS-DOS operating system, optional color monitor, intel chip and two floppy disk drives. It is their first personal computer.

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• 1983-1984: Apple develops the Lisa Computer with graphical user interface with a drop down menu and icons. Macintosh was released a year later. The first laptop was the Gavilan SC, manufactured by Gavilan Computer Corp.

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• 1985: Microsoft Windows is introduced. Commodore Amiga 1000 has features of advanced audio and video capabilities. The first dot-com domain is registered before HTML and the World Wide Web.

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• 1990: Tim Berners-Lee develops HyperText Markup Language at the CERN Physics Laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland.

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• 1993: Graphics and music are advanced by the Pentium Microprocessor.

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• 1996: Sergey Brin and Larry Page develop the Google search engine.

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• 1999-2000: Wi-Fi becomes part of the technological language and internet users start going wireless.

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21st Century

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• 2001: Apple releases the Mac OS X operating system. It provides protected memory architecture and multitasking capabilities.

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• 2004: Mozilla Firefox web browser is released and computer programmer Mark Zuckerberg develops Facebook while at Harvard.

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• 2005: YouTube is founded and Google acquires the Android operating system.

• 2007: The first generation iPhone is released.

• 2009: Microsoft Windows 7 is launched.

• 2010: First generation iPad is released.

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Source: http://www.livescience.com/20718-computer-history.html