Today in History - December 26, 1982 - TIME’s Person of the Year is a computer.

History has always pondered whether the future was propelled by the movement of the masses, the fine control of the elite, or the inevitable flow of society. However, before now no one ever questioned whether history was centered around people. Then comes the great electrical “thinking device”: The Computer. Matured beyond the initial fascinations with the Samuel’s Checkers Program and 2001’s Hal, personal computers finally made the power of computers familiar to the masses. The Apple II first made waves with the hobbyist and then IBM introduced them to world business. Soon the universality of computers became clear to everyone. On Dec 26th Time Magazine saw for the first time, that instead of people, computers were controlling the future and named the computer “Person of the Year.”

For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’s resources on personal computers and computation. For curricular resources, visit the Computer Science Education, the Computer Engineering Education or the Software Engineering Education community sites.