Computers need programming languages to function. That’s just a simple fact of life. However, these languages didn’t just spring up out of nowhere. They were developed by people for explicit purposes.

Figured this might be the best place to ask. I'm curious if there's any good books that give some detail on how and/or why some programming languages evolved the way they did, especially during the ...

For the rest of the history of modern programming languages -- because C was really just the beginning! -- check out the infographic below. You can click it to zoom in.

Invented by John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz of Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, BASIC was first successfully used to run programs on the school’s General Electric computer system 50 ...