Rediscovering WWII's female 'computers'

[Dave Monroe]

"Computer, at that point, was a job title, not a machine. Long before
the sisters were businesswomen, community activists, mothers or
grandmothers, they were recruited by the U.S. military to do
ballistics research. They worked six days a week, sometimes pulling
double or triple shifts, along with dozens of other women.

"The weapons trajectories they calculated were passed out to soldiers
in the field and bombardiers in the air...."

[...]

http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/innovation/02/08/women.rosies.math/index.html