Grace Hopper – Her 119th Anniversary
Today, December 9th 2025, is the 119th anniversary of the birth of Grace Hopper. Her concern for teaching young people is why Computer Science Education Week and the Hour of Code, now the Hour of AI, are timed to coincide with her birthday. Her legacy also extends into other areas.
In Latin America, 9th December is Día Mundial de la Informática. This celebration dates back to 1983 and the choice of date pays homage to Grace Hopper who is celebrated for her role in the developing the COBOL programming language and the person who invented the term “bug”
Since the inception of Computer Science Week in 2009, timed as the week in December which includes her birthday on the 9th, she has also been recognized for her role as a teacher dedicated to sharing her understanding of computer science with young people. And, of course, her legacy was automatically extended to Hour of Code when it made its debut in 2013.
Other areas in which we can regard Grace Hopper as an exemplary role model is in defeating both sexism and ageism. She had a very long and very interesting career and succeeded in what was very much a male-dominated world.
She started out with the disadvantage of being a woman with an interest in technology. Having studied mathematics at Vasser College, she earned a Ph.D. in from Yale, but as a woman her options were limited – she could only look forward to teaching maths. However the Second World War intervened and Grace Hopper joined the US Navy Reserve where she served on the Mark I computer programming staff headed by Howard H. Aiken.
At the end of the war Hopper’s request to transfer to the regular Navy was declined due to her age – she was 38. She did, however, continue to serve in the Navy Reserve. Although she initially retired in 1966, she was recalled to active duty in August 1967 for a six-month period that turned into an indefinite assignment.
When Grace Hopper finally retired in 1986, she was the oldest commissioned officer in the United States Navy and had rank attained the rank of Rear Admiral. She had defeated ageism as well as sexism and was responsible for the continuous pressure within the industry to make computers and computing more accessible.
Grace Brewster Murray Hopper,
December 9,1906- January 1,1992
Part of Grace Hopper’s legacy has been to inspire efforts to bring the research and career interests of women in computing to the forefront. For more on this see Grace Hopper – Building On Her Legacy, which includes an amusing infographic of her life.
Another infographic is presented in The Life and Times Of Admiral Grace Hopper, which also includes the famous Nanosecond video which went viral a decade ago. See Grace Hopper’s 112th Birthday for her 1991 interview with David Letterman.
She is also the subject of an article in our History section – Grace Hopper – The Mother of Cobol, and a book review – Grace Hopper and the Invention of the Information Age.
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