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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hello and welcome to This Day in History Class,

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Speaker 1: a show for those who can never know enough about history.

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Speaker 1: I'm Gabe Bluesier, and today we're looking at the time

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Speaker 1: when early computer scientists encountered an unusual problem with their hardware.

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Speaker 1: The day was September nine. A team of engineers at

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Speaker 1: Harvard University reported the earliest known computer bug today. Debugging

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Speaker 1: computer systems and software is a routine step in computer

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Speaker 1: programming and software development. It's a way to find and

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Speaker 1: resolve potential errors or bugs and software code so that

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Speaker 1: the program or system is able to operate correctly. However,

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Speaker 1: the computer bug reported at Harvard wasn't a bad line

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Speaker 1: of code or a machine defect. It was an actual insect,

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Speaker 1: a brown house moth, to be precise. In the US

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Speaker 1: Navy contracted Harvard engineers to build and test an early

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Speaker 1: electro mechanical computer. The device was called the Ak and

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Speaker 1: Relay Calculator, also known as the Harvard Mark two, and

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Speaker 1: it was designed to make ballistic calculations. The machine was

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Speaker 1: completed in and the test phase went smoothly at first. However,

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Speaker 1: in early September, the team noticed the machine had started

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Speaker 1: registering consistent errors. On September nine, they opened the computer's

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Speaker 1: hardware to try and find the source of the problem.

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Speaker 1: That's when they saw it. Squashed between two points in

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Speaker 1: relay a number seventy of panel F was a small

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Speaker 1: dead moth. It had somehow gotten trapped inside the Mark too,

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Speaker 1: and once it had ceased to move, the weight of

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Speaker 1: its body disrupted the electronics and caused the computer to malfunction.

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Speaker 1: The team literally had to debug the machine to fix it,

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Speaker 1: and the irony of the moment wasn't lost on them.

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Speaker 1: Instead of discarding the pesky moth, the team preserved it,

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Speaker 1: taping it inside the Mark two's log book. Among the

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Speaker 1: team's members was skilled mathematician and computer language pioneer Grace

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Speaker 1: Murray Hopper. She had graduated from Yale University with a

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Speaker 1: pH d in mathematics in thirty four, and later became

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Speaker 1: a professor of the subject at Vassar College. She then

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Speaker 1: joined the Naval Reserves during World War two and began

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Speaker 1: working with very early computers at Harvard in four. Dr

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Speaker 1: Hopper was considered one of the top minds in her field,

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Speaker 1: with one of her greatest claims to aim being the

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Speaker 1: creation of the first English language data processing compiler. That

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Speaker 1: program was able to translate computer code written in one

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Speaker 1: programming language into another language, such as machine code. That

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Speaker 1: breakthrough allowed a programmer to write code using English commands,

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Speaker 1: making the process faster, easier, and less prone to error.

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Speaker 1: The discovery of the world's first computer bug took place

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Speaker 1: about five years before Hopper finished her compiler. She wasn't

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Speaker 1: one of the technical crew that found and removed the

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Speaker 1: dead moth, but she is believed to be the one

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Speaker 1: who taped it. Inside the log book. Alongside the moth,

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Speaker 1: Hopper recorded the time of day, three PM and the

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Speaker 1: location of the bug Relay seventy of Panel LEF. She

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Speaker 1: also included the tongue in cheek note that made the

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Speaker 1: incident famous. It said quote first actual case of bug

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Speaker 1: being found. Many sources have claimed that Grace Hopper actually

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Speaker 1: invented the term computer bug with that entry. However, the

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Speaker 1: note itself seems to suggest otherwise. After all, her corny

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Speaker 1: joke about it being the first actual case of a

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Speaker 1: bug doesn't make much sense if the term wasn't already

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Speaker 1: in common use. In reality, American inventors and engineers have

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Speaker 1: been referring to small mechanical flaws as bugs for more

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Speaker 1: than a century and a half. One of the earliest

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Speaker 1: recorded uses of the term comes from none other than

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Speaker 1: Thomas Edison. In November of eighteen seventy eight, he used

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Speaker 1: the phrase in a letter to Hungarian inventor Theodore Puscus

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Speaker 1: when describing an issue with his latest version of the phonograph.

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Speaker 1: Edison wrote quote, I have the right principle, and I'm

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Speaker 1: on the right track. But time, hard work, and some

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Speaker 1: good luck are necessary too. It has been just so

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Speaker 1: in all of my inventions. The first step is an

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Speaker 1: intuition and comes with a burst. Then difficulties arise, This

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Speaker 1: thing gives out, and then that bugs as such, little

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Speaker 1: faults and difficulties are called show themselves, and months of

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Speaker 1: intense watching, study, and labor are requisite before commercial success

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Speaker 1: or failure is certainly reached. No one knows who originally

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Speaker 1: coined the term bug, but Edison was certainly the one

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Speaker 1: to popularize it in relation to machinery or electronics. Late

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Speaker 1: nineteenth century newspaper sometimes referred to his use of the expression,

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Speaker 1: and by nine thirty four it had become so commonplace

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Speaker 1: that Webster's New International Dictionary added a third definition for

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Speaker 1: the noun bug, a defect in an apparatus or its operation.

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Speaker 1: So Dr Hopper and the rest of the team at

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Speaker 1: Harvard didn't invent the term, but since their work occurred

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Speaker 1: in the very early days of computers, they were likely

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Speaker 1: the first to apply it to that kind of machine.

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Speaker 1: As a result of their little joke, the words bug

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Speaker 1: and d bug soon became common lingo among computer programmers,

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Speaker 1: just as they had been among their nineteenth century predecessors.

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Speaker 1: In recognition of the first bug found in a computer,

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Speaker 1: September ninth is now celebrated around the world as Tester's Day.

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Speaker 1: And as for the infamous bug itself, it's still attached

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Speaker 1: to page ninety two of the Harvard Mark tow Log

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Speaker 1: Book and is now part of the permanent collection at

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Speaker 1: the Smithsonian's Museum of American History in Washington, d C.

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Speaker 1: Go check it out for yourself. Today's story is an

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Speaker 1: interesting intersection between etymology, the study of the origin of

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Speaker 1: words and their meanings, and entomology, the study of insects.

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Speaker 1: So before we go, I want to share a fact

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Speaker 1: that scholars of both fields will appreciate. Even though the

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Speaker 1: moth found in the Mark two was labeled the first

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Speaker 1: computer bug. Biologically speaking, it wasn't a bug at all.

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Speaker 1: That's because, contrary to popular belief, bugs and insects aren't

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Speaker 1: the same thing. Bugs are a specific type of insect

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Speaker 1: set apart by key biological differences. Bugs, for example, have

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Speaker 1: three life stages, while most other insects have four. By

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Speaker 1: this measure, aphids, cicadas, stink bugs, bed bugs, and water

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Speaker 1: bugs are all true bugs, but flies, bees, beetles, butterflies,

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Speaker 1: and yes, moths all belong to different orders and are

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Speaker 1: only classified as insects, not bugs. So yeah, for all

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Speaker 1: you purists out there, the Harvard moth was actually the

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Speaker 1: world's first computer insect. But come on, that's not nearly

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Speaker 1: as catchy. I'm gay, Bluesier and hopefully you now know

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Speaker 1: a little more about history today than you did yesterday.

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Speaker 1: You can learn even more about history by following us

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Speaker 1: on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Him at t d I

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Speaker 1: HC Show, and if you have any comments or suggestions,

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Speaker 1: feel free to send them my way at this day

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Speaker 1: at I heart media dot com. Thanks to Chandler Mays

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Speaker 1: for producing the show, and thank you for listening. I'll

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Speaker 1: see you back here again soon. For another day. In

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Speaker 1: history class,