What Happened on January 10th

Donald Ervin Knuth, best known for his ongoing multi-volume book series The Art of Computer Programming, is born. Knuth's books provide surveys of the software field, comparing algorithms for performing some of the most fundamental computer science procedures. The book project, which is expected to last his entire lifetime, was born out of a desire to eliminate duplication of effort by programmers. Knuth also took a decade-long diversion from the book series to create the language TeX, when he received galley-proofs of one of his books and noticed how poor the state of technical typesetting was. Knuth has based much of his writing on his theory that programming a computer is an art form, like the creation of poetry or music.