Long before computers fit on desks—or in pockets—“computers” were people. During World War II, six brilliant women were recruited to program ENIAC, the world’s first electronic computer. With no manuals, no programming languages, and no precedent, they invented the very idea of programming—teaching a machine how to think step by step. These women—Kathleen McNulty, Jean Jennings Bartik, Betty Snyder Holberton, Marlyn Wescoff Meltzer, Ruth Lichterman Teitelbaum, and Frances Bilas Spence—translated human problems into machine logic by hand-wiring panels and switches. They pioneered debugging, optimization, and reusable routines decades before the field had names for them. When