What Happened on September 9th
september 9, 1947
First Instance of Actual Computer Bug Being Found
On September 9, 1947, a team of computer scientists and engineers reported a moth caught between the relay contacts of the Harvard Mark II computer in Cambridge, Massachusetts. They taped the dead moth into the logbook for the computer. “First actual case of bug being found,” one of the team members wrote in the log. Programmer Grace Hopper -- a CHM Fellow (1987) -- was present and made the incident famous later on in her many public lectures. Originating with Thomas Edison in the 1800s, the term “bug” is still used widely to describe a mistake or failure in a technical system.