[24] She worked to gain hands-on experience during a time when computer science courses were uncommon and software engineering courses did not exist. [36], Hamilton's priority alarm displays interrupted the astronauts' normal displays to warn them that there was an emergency "giving the astronauts a go/no go decision (to land or not to land)". We had to find a way and we did. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. "Hamilton was honored by NASA in 2003, when she was presented a special award recognizing the value of her innovations in the Apollo software development," NASA wrote in 2016. She graduated from Hancock High School and studied at the University . Her most visible appearances during this period were as general store owner, Cora, in a national series of television commercials for Maxwell House coffee. Margaret Heafield Hamilton was born on August 17, 1936, in Paoli, Indiana. The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. In the early 1960s Hamilton joined MITs Lincoln Laboratory, where she was involved in the Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) project, the first U.S. air defense system. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance". margaret-hamilton-bio-wiki-age-family-net-worth-height-nationality-and-facts.html. [1], On November 22, 2016, Hamilton received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from president Barack Obama for her work leading to the development of on-board flight software for NASA's Apollo Moon missions. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience. According to Wired's Karen Tegan Padir: "She, along with that other early programming pioneer, COBOL inventor Grace Hopper, also deserve tremendous credit for helping to open the door for more women to enter and succeed in STEM fields like software. Hamilton was the recipient of various honours, including NASAs Exceptional Space Act Award (2003). Qualification: BA in Mathematics with a Minor in Philosophy, College: Earlham College, University of Michigan, Profession: Computer Scientist, Systems Engineer and Business Owner, Known For: Director of the Software Engineering Division of the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory, which developed On-board Flight Software for NASAs Apollo Space Program, James Cox Hamilton; (m. 1958; div. The company was developed around the Universal Systems Language (USL) and its associated automated environment, the 001 Tool Suite, based on her paradigm of development before the fact for systems design and software development.[32][51][52]. As she grew, she quickly developed a passion for mathematics and decided to work in this domain. Hamilton was initially hired as a programmer for this process but moved on into systems design. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Margaret Hamilton (December 9, 1902 - May 16, 1985) was an American film actress known for her portrayal of the Wicked Witch of the West in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. So, how much is Margaret Hamilton worth at the age of 83 years old? She is a member of famous Actress with the age 83 years old group. Profiled in "American Classic Screen Interviews" (Scarecrow Press). [3], Hamilton made her screen debut in the MGM film Another Language (1933) starring Helen Hayes and Robert Montgomery. With only minutes to spare, the decision was made to go for the landing.". "The NASA Heritage of Creativity." [4] They divorced in 1967 and Margaret married Dan Lickly two years later.[80][82]. She is best known for playing the Wicked Witch of the West in the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz.In movies, she often played older, unmarried women from New England who was extremely practical but did not enjoy jokes. In the 1960s, Hamilton was a regular on another CBS soap opera, The Secret Storm, playing the role of Grace Tyrell's housekeeper, Katie. "Hamilton contributed to concepts of asynchronous software, priority scheduling and priority displays, and human-in-the-loop decision capability, which set the foundation for modern, ultra-reliable software design and engineering," the citation for her medal read. She was severely burned during the "Surrender Dorothy!" She coined the term software engineer because she felt that the work she and her team were doing was just as important and just as much engineering as the other work on the Apollo spacecraft. And what had happened was it was tricky programming, and the person who wrote it took delight in the fact that all of his comments were in Greek and Latin. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. She knew everything about these vital programs. The computer was overloaded with interrupts caused by incorrectly phased power supplied to the lander's rendezvous radar. City Without Men. At 83 years old, Margaret Hamilton height [18] In 1979, she was a guest speaker at a University of Connecticut children's literature class. Looking back, we were the luckiest people in the world; there was no choice but to be pioneers. According to Hamilton, this now-iconic image (at left, above) was taken at MIT in 1969 by a staff photographer for the Instrumentation Laboratory later named the Draper Laboratory and today an independent organization for use in promotion of the labs work on the Apollo project. Later in life, she would comment on the role of the witch in a light-hearted fashion. Margaret Hamilton was born December 9, 1902 in Cleveland, Ohio, to Jennie (Adams) and Walter Hamilton. Margaret Hamilton (Margaret Brainard Hamilton) was born on 9 December, 1902 in Cleveland, Ohio, USA, is an Actress, Soundtrack. As a girl, Hamilton loved math and science. "[13] She appeared as herself in three episodes of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, between 1975 and 1976, because Fred Rogers wanted his viewers to recognize the Wicked Witch was just a character and not something to be afraid of. Hamilton also toured in many plays and musicals, even repeating her role of the Wicked Witch in specially written stage productions of The Wizard of Oz. Margaret Elaine Hamilton (born Heafield on August 17, 1936) is an American computer scientist, systems engineer, and business owner. [2] Before she turned to acting exclusively, her parents insisted she attend Wheelock College in Boston, which she did, later becoming a kindergarten teacher. Margaret Hamilton Biography, Facts & Life Story. Devising, writing, testing, and testing these routines was quite commendable. I guess for a minute they get the feeling they got when they watched the picture. Omissions? Although Margaret planned to study abstract mathematics at Brandeis University, she accepted a job at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) while her husband attended Harvard Law School. Pres. Hamilton never remarried. [13][14][15] Her work contributed to Lorenz's publications on chaos theory. For her work, she was honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016. Margaret Hamilton, ne Margaret Heafield, (born August 17, 1936, Paoli, Indiana, U.S.), American computer scientist who was one of the first computer software programmers; she created the term software engineer to describe her work. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Planetary science is a global profession. The award included $37,200, the largest amount awarded to any individual in NASA's history. When asked about her experiences on the set of The Wizard of Oz, Hamilton said her biggest fear was that her monstrous film role would give children the wrong idea of who she really was. View popular celebrities life details, birth signs and real ages. Throughout the 1970s, Hamilton lived in New York City's Gramercy Park neighborhood and appeared on local (and some national) public-service announcements for organizations promoting the welfare of pets. SAGE was soon developed for military use in anti-aircraft air defense. [20][41] They created a product called USE.IT, based on the HOS methodology they developed at MIT. Margaret Heafield Hamilton (born Heafield on August 17, 1936) is an American computer scientist, systems engineer, and business owner.She is credited with coining the term, "software engineering".Hamilton was Director of the Software Engineering Division of the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory, which developed on-board flight software for the Apollo space program. And there's always a funny reaction, like 'Ye gods, they wish they hadn't asked.' ], She married Paul Boynton Meserve on June 13, 1931, and made her debut on the New York City stage the following year. This overloaded the central processing unit during the landing, but fortunately, the software recovered in the heated moments before Apollo 11 touched down. A century earlier, she had a worthy British predecessor named Ada Lovelace. Credit: Courtesy MIT Museum Margaret Hamilton's Apollo Code A brief history of the famous 1969 photo of the software that sent humans to the Moon. "Every time the CPU approached overload, the software cleared out its entire queue of processes, restarted its functions; allowing only the highest priority ones to perform until the landing was completed," she said. The original caption, she says, reads: Here, Margaret is shown standing beside listings of the software developed by her and the team she was in charge of, the LM [lunar module] and CM [command module] on-board flight software team.. Social Media Lead: [12] She developed software for predicting weather, programming on the LGP-30 and the PDP-1 computers at Marvin Minsky's Project MAC. And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: community@space.com. The contract was awarded just weeks before then-President John F. Kennedy announced that he planned to have humans on the moon by the end of the decade. Margaret Brainard Hamilton (December 9, 1902 May 16, 1985) was an American actress and educator. New York, 1967) {Ex-Husband}, Your email address will not be published. So I was assigned this program and I actually got it to work. Four years later, she obtained the Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics at Earlham College, Richmond, Indiana (USA). The man had reached the Moon. Daneman's nephew refused to meet Hamilton because even though he understood she was an actress, he thought it was still possible she really was like the character in the movie. In addition to requiring a deep understanding of computers, it was not easy to write just over 400,000 lines of code that were inserted into the operating system of the lunar module in the Apollo missions. Looking back, we were the luckiest people in the world; there was no choice but to be pioneers.. August 17, 2016. In later years, Hamilton made frequent . Hamilton's plain looks helped to bring steady work as a character actress. The picture made a terrible impression of some kind on them, sometimes a ghastly impression, but most of them got over it, I guess because when I talk like the Witch, and when I laugh, there is a hesitation and then they clap. Cleveland Plain Dealer, September 1958. Her other mid-1970s stage productions, as the producer, were The Three Sisters and House Party.[where? By Maia Weinstock | MIT News Office The cookie settings on this website are set to "allow cookies" to give you the best browsing experience possible. (Apollo 13 aborted before landing due to an explosion in the command module's service area.). She appeared on Broadway in the musical Goldilocks opposite Don Ameche and Elaine Stritch, gave a lighter touch to the domineering Parthy Anne Hawks in the 1966 revival of Show Boat (dancing with David Wayne), and was the tender Aunt Eller in the 1968 Lincoln Center revival of Oklahoma!. MIT Museum: Margaret Hamilton Apollo Photos. Hamilton next worked at MITs Instrumentation Laboratory (now the independent Charles Stark Draper Laboratory), which provided aeronautical technology for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). [50], Hamilton was the CEO of HOS through 1984[20] and left the company in 1985. [14] The SAGE Project was an extension of Project Whirlwind, started by MIT to create a computer system that could predict weather systems and track their movements using simulators. It is ironic that her performance as the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz (1939) was so scary to children, because her first job was as a kindergarten teacher. Margaret Dawn Hamilton AM (23 June 1941 - 24 November 2022) [1] was an Australian children's literature publisher who served as the National President of the Children's Book Council of Australia from 1991 to 1992 and as a National Board Member until April 2017 when she formally retired. [16] Hamilton also served as Director of the Software Engineering Division. They're really scared for a second. Margaret Hamilton, ne Margaret Heafield, (born August 17, 1936, Paoli, Indiana, U.S.), American computer scientist who was one of the first computer software programmers; she created the term software engineer to describe her work. CAPE ISLAND Tour boat operators sometimes entertained their passengers by referring to Cape Island as "Witch's Island." That's because the primary resident there, during summers from 1961 to 1985, was Margaret Hamilton, the actor who played the Wicked Witch of the West and Elmira Gulch in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz.. Elizabeth Howell (she/her), Ph.D., is a staff writer in the spaceflight channel since 2022 covering diversity, education and gaming as well. [81][80] She briefly taught high school mathematics and French at a public school in Boston, Indiana. Her family later moved to Michigan and Hamilton attended the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, for a time. On weekends, she took her daughter Lauren to the lab to spend time with her, while she worked writing the computer routines that would go on the Apollo command module computer. She later attended Hathaway Brown School in Shaker Heights, Ohio, and practiced acting doing children's theater while a Junior League of Cleveland member. If the latter case, this would be Hamilton's third but uncredited role. Her father, Thomas Storey, was the founder of the Stanford University School of Health. Quote her most famous line, however, and watch their eyes blink awake with recognition: "I'll get you my pretty! ", Hamilton later left MIT to start her own software company, but her name is still most recognized for her lunar landing accomplishments. She became very concerned about the role's effect on children, and finally did a guest spot on Mister Rogers' Neighborhood (1968) to explain that the Witch was just a character in the film, and not herself. Dishonored Lady. She appeared regularly in supporting roles in films until the early 1950s and sporadically thereafter. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1998. The original caption, she says, reads: Here, Margaret is shown standing beside listings of the software developed by her and the team she was in charge of, the LM [lunar module] and CM [command module] on-board flight software team.. Computer scientist Margaret Hamilton poses for a series of photos with the Apollo guidance software she and her team developed at the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory. Margaret Hamilton was born December 9, 1902 in Cleveland, Ohio, to Jennie (Adams) and Walter Hamilton. A kindergarten teacher in her native Cleveland, Margaret Hamilton began her acting career there in community theatre and with the prestigious Cleveland Playhouse. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Hat, Coat and Glove. [30][31][32] The program alarms indicated "executive overflows", meaning the guidance computer could not complete all of its tasks in real time and had to postpone some of them. Danko sat on a smoking pipe configured to look like the Witch's broomstick. A complete set of recovery programs was incorporated into the software. Half a century ago, MIT played a critical role in the development of the flight software for NASAs Apollo program, which landed humans on the Moon for the first time in 1969. "Everything was going according to plan until something totally unexpected happened, just as the astronauts were in the process of landing on the moon," she recalled. marriedcelebrity; April 19, 2019; Celebrity Gossip; Born as Margaret Heafield, she is an American system engineer, computer scientist and a woman entrepreneur as well. Biography of Margaret Hamilton, American scientist, notable computer scientist who worked at NASA in support of Apollo missions. [36], When Hamilton started using the term "software engineering" during the early Apollo missions,[57] software development was not taken seriously compared to other engineering,[58] nor was it regarded as a science. in Space Studies from the University of North Dakota, a Bachelor of Journalism from Canada's Carleton University and (soon) a Bachelor of History from Athabasca University. [48] Others have used HOS to formalize the semantics of linguistic quantifiers,[49] and to formalize the design of reliable real-time embedded systems. She lived in Manhattan for most of her adult life, and summered in a cottage on Cape Island, Southport, Maine. Half a century ago, MIT played a critical role in the development of the flight software for NASAs Apollo program, which landed humans on the Moon for the first time in 1969. Margaret Hamilton, the actress whose role as the cackling Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz unnerved generations of children, died yesterday, apparently of a heart attack, at a nursing home in Salisbury, Connecticut. Without exaggeration, it could be said that the heroes of the arrival to the Moon were four: Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins and Margaret Hamilton. A few months after filming Oz, she appeared in Babes in Arms (1939) as Jeff Steele's aunt, Martha, a society do-gooder who made it her goal to send the gang of child actors, led by Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, to a work farm. Had one child, son, Hamilton Wadsworth Meserve, on June 12, 1936. [2010]. In the early 1970s, she joined the cast of another CBS soap opera, As the World Turns, on which she played Miss Peterson, Simon Gilbey's assistant. Elizabeth's reporting includes multiple exclusives with the White House and Office of the Vice-President of the United States, an exclusive conversation with aspiring space tourist (and NSYNC bassist) Lance Bass, speaking several times with the International Space Station, witnessing five human spaceflight launches on two continents, working inside a spacesuit, and participating in a simulated Mars mission. Because software was a mystery, a black box, upper management gave us total freedom and trust. Bill Dunford These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. [22][16] Another part of her team designed and developed the systems software. This article was most recently revised and updated by, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Margaret-Hamilton-American-computer-scientist, Space.com - Margaret H. Hamilton: Apollo Computer Programmer, Wired - Her Code Got Humans on the Moon - And Invented Software Itself, Margaret Hamilton - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11), Margaret Hamilton - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up), National Aeronautics and Space Administration. In the episode, entitled "Triptych for a Witch," Hamilton played the title role. Play Girl. Though only in her early '30s, the gloriously unpretty Hamilton subsequently . She cofounded the company Higher Order Software in 1976 and established Hamilton Technologies 10 years later. Biography of Margaret Hamilton, American Computer Scientist, Biography of Elizabeth Barrett, British poet, Biography of Ursula von der Leyen, German politician, Biography of Isabel Zendal, Spanish nurse, Biography of Sheila Herrero, Spanish athlete, Biography of Genoveva Torres, Spanish religious. Earlham College, Richmond. In 2019, she was awarded the Intrepid Lifetime Achievement Award. "All of a sudden, the normal mission sequences were interrupted by priority displays of 1201 and 1202 alarms, giving the astronauts a go/no-go decision (to land or not to land)," she added. They liked to kid me about my radical ideas. She soon transferred, however, to Earlham College in Indiana where she graduated with a bachelor's degree in mathematics, with a minor in philosophy. In 2019, she was awarded The Washington Award. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. We recommend you to check the complete list of Famous People born on 9 December. Both those elements were crucial during the Apollo 11 mission (1969), which took astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the Moon. [19] She later moved to Millbrook, New York. Looking back, we were the luckiest people in the world; there was no choice but to be pioneers.. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Copyright 2018-2023, All Rights Reserved Super Stars Bio. Mutual respect was across the board. It turned out that the astronaut checklist, which governed the actions the crew had to do before landing, had the crew set the rendezvous radar hardware switch in the wrong position. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. The computer (or rather the software in it) was smart enough to recognize that it was being asked to perform more tasks than it should be performing. She was 82 years old. Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet. "Kindergarten Lost Margaret Hamilton." 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[38] Paul Curto, senior technologist who nominated Hamilton for a NASA Space Act Award, called Hamilton's work "the foundation for ultra-reliable software design".[23]. We knew that. In 1933, Hamilton was invited to repeat her stage role of the sarcastic daughter-in-law in the Broadway play Another Language for the MGM film version. Until the day she died, she had children recognizing her and coming up to her to ask why she was so mean to Dorothy. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other. Journey for Margaret. !' Only co-star Frank Morgan played more roles (five) in the film. Miss Hamilton Sings 1840 Song at Play House", "Wicked Witch of the West not always a fright sight", "Wizard of Oz 'witch' loved her Maine island", "Actress Margaret Hamilton, the Wicked Witch of the West", Margaret Hamilton correspondence and ephemera, 1944-1979, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Margaret_Hamilton_(actress)&oldid=1138589927, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles with unsourced statements from August 2022, Vague or ambiguous geographic scope from March 2014, Internet Broadway Database person ID same as Wikidata, Internet Off-Broadway Database person ID same as Wikidata, Turner Classic Movies person ID different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Epiisode: "An Eye for an Eye" (S 2:Ep 35), Episode: "Bilko Enters Politics" (S 2:Ep 20), This page was last edited on 10 February 2023, at 13:49. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. "From my own perspective, the software experience itself (designing it, developing it, evolving it, watching it perform and learning from it for future systems) was at least as exciting as the events surrounding the mission," she said. Would spoof her famous role of The Wicked Witch of The West in a 1976 Paul Lynde Halloween Special for television. In 1939, Hamilton played the role of the Wicked Witch of the West, opposite Judy Garland's Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz, creating not only her most famous role, but also one of the screen's most memorable villains. Played Aunt Eva on the radio series Ethel and Albert in the 1940s and 1950s . She subsequently developed Alzheimer's disease and died in her sleep following a heart attack on May 16, 1985 in Salisbury, Connecticut at the age of 82. She later attended Hathaway Brown School in Shaker Heights, Ohio, and practiced acting doing children's theater while a Junior League of Cleveland member. Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. She strove to work as much as possible to support herself and her son; she never put herself under contract to any one studio and priced her services at $1,000 ($18,800 with inflation[4]) a week.[5]. Starred in the live on-stage musical "A Little Night Music" (with actress Jean Simmons in the lead role) during the mid-1970s in San Francisco. Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.