What Happened on January 21st
january 21, 1888
Babbage's Analytical Engine Passes the First Test
The Analytical Engine of Charles Babbage was never completed in his lifetime, but his son Henry Provost Babbage completed portions of its "Mill," the part of the machine that carried out computation, using his father's drawings. The younger Babbage wrote, "The iron top and bottom frame plates were cast in 1880, and the work was carried on, somewhat intermittently, until the 21st. of January 1888, when the machine produced a table from 1st. to 44th. multiples of π to twenty-nine places of figures..." The results were later published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, April 1910.