John McCarthy Timeline

  • Birth Date

    Birth Date
    John McCarthy was born on September 4th, 1927 in Boston Massachusetts.
  • California Institute of Technology

    California Institute of Technology
    At just 17 years old, John McCarthy entered the California Institute of Technology.
  • BS in Mathematics

    BS in Mathematics
    John received a BS in Mathematics from Caltech.
  • PhD in Mathematics

    PhD in Mathematics
    John received his PhD in mathematics from Princeton University.
  • Coined the term "AI"

    Coined the term "AI"
    At a summer workshop hosted by Dartmouth College, John McCarthy coined the term "AI" in front of the worlds leading technological minds.
  • Invented Language Lisp

    Invented Language Lisp
    John invented the programming, Language Lisp.
  • Timesharing

    Timesharing
    In the 1960s, McCarthy introduced and perfected the idea of "Timesharing" which is equivalent to tadays version of the cloud. He was finding a way for different computer terminals to access the same information at once.... in its simplest form.
  • Chess Program

    Chess Program
    In 1962, with the help of his students, McCarthy assisted in creating the first computer program to play chess.
  • SAIL

    SAIL
    In 1965, John became the founding director of SAIL. The Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.
  • Kotok-McCarthy chess match vs. Soviets

    Kotok-McCarthy chess match vs. Soviets
    In 1966, John McCarthy took the program to compete against another machine, in a game of chess. The time period of this was pivotal, as the match was between us and the Soviets. The U.S program lost to the soviets program,
    3-1.
  • A.M Turing Award

    A.M Turing Award
    In 1971, McCarthy was given the A.M Turing award by the Association of Computing Machinery.
  • Honored Professor

    Honored Professor
    In 1987, John was named the Charles M. Piggot professor at the Stanford school of engineering.
  • Kyoto Prize

    Kyoto Prize
    In 1988, John received the Kyoto prize.
  • National Medal of Science

    National Medal of Science
    In 1990, John received the National medal of science, the nations highest technical award.
  • Benjamin Franklin Medal

    Benjamin Franklin Medal
    In 2003, he was awarded the Benjamin Franklin medal.
  • The death of John McCarthy

    The death of John McCarthy
    John McCarthy passed away in 2011 at his home in Stanford, California.