GoKawiilSharla Boehm, a math teacher, spent her summers coding. She’d go on to build what would eventually evolve into the Internet
Sharla Boehm earned a teaching degree from the University of California, Los Angeles, before she channeled her talent for math into computer programming. While working at the RAND Corporation, she built a groundbreaking simulation, originally conceived to strengthen military communications during the cold war. The simulation—and her work—would ultimately lay the foundation for the modern Internet.
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TRANSCRIPT
Archival: What if a warning siren sounds? What should you do? Don’t hesitate. Find cover.
Katie Hafner: In the early 1960s, the United States and the Soviet Union were in a treacherous standoff. Each side was on high alert, with a growing stockpile of nuclear weapons — ready to launch at the first sign of an attack.
U.S. authorities weren’t just worried about how to weather an initial attack. They worried about how they would mount a counterattack if a bomb knocked out communications.
After all, these fragile systems were highly vulnerable to nuclear attack. If one bomb hit just right, all military communications could go down, leaving the entire country essentially defenseless.
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