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Birth, Seattle, WA.
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Enrolls in the Lakeside School in Seattle, where he first used a computer.
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Began his interest in computers and programming. Began programming with fellow classmate, Paul Allen.
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Began school at Harvard University.
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Started Micro-Soft with Paul Allen in Albuquerque, NM.
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Dropped the hyphen in Micro-Soft and changed company name to Microsoft.
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Takes a leave of absence from Harvard to work on his and Allen's company.
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Microsoft went global and had 30 percent of the world's computers running on its software.
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Microsoft launched Windows.
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Microsoft headquarters moves to Redmond, Washington and shortly after, the company finally goes public.
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Becomes the youngest billionaire ever at 31 years old.
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Founded Corbis. In that same year, Microsoft introduced Microsoft Office.
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Married Melinda Gates.
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Microsoft introduced Windows '95 to the world.
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Published his book Business @ the Speed of Thought.
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Stepped down as CEO of Microsoft and became chief software architect.
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The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is formed.
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Queen Elizabeth II bestowed Gates with an honorary knighthood for his contributions to the UK.
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Graduated from Harvard University.