The earliest programmed machine was created by Charles Babbage, an English polymath, who designed the first mechanical computer known as the Difference Engine starting in 1822. He later designed an even more advanced machine called the Analytical Engine, which is considered the first design for a general-purpose programmable computer. Although Babbage never completed building these machines during his lifetime due to funding and technical challenges, his concepts laid the foundation for modern computing. Additionally, Ada Lovelace, working with Babbage, wrote the first computer program for his Analytical Engine in the 1840s, making her the world's first computer programmer. Another early significant contributor was Konrad Zuse, who in 1941 created the Z3, the world's first working electromechanical programmable computer. Thus, Charles Babbage is credited with creating the earliest programmed machine conceptually, and Ada Lovelace created the earliest known program for it, while Konrad Zuse built the first fully working programmable electromechanical computer.
