Today in 1959, the Automatically Programmed Tool (APT) programming language was demonstrated for the first time.
APT was a special-purpose language and the predecessor to modern computer aided manufacturing (CAM) systems. Using English-language commands, it programmed numerically-controlled machine tools, creating complex parts using a cutting tool moving in space.
From The New Yorker (March 28, 1959):
Cambridge, Mass., Feb. 25--
The Air Force announced today that it has a machine that can receive instructions in English, figure out how to make whatever is wanted, and teach other machines how to make it.
An Air Force general said it will enable the United States to "build a war machine that nobody would want to tackle."
Today it made an ashtray.
Souvenir aluminum ashtrays, milled in three dimensions by the first APT System, were included in the press kit given to the “over 60 members of the technical and popular press” attending the press conference at MIT on February 25, resulting “in extensive coverage throughout the world for the next few months.”