December 3rd, 1896 - Hermann Hollerith incorporated the Tabulating Machine Company on this day in 1896. At age twenty-nine, Hollerith, who had worked at the Census Bureau in 1880, won a competition to develop the most efficient counting system for the 1890 census. His tabulating machine counted punched cards, inspired by a card system developed by Joseph Jacquard of France to program patterns into textile looms. Through a series of mergers and reorganizations, the Tabulating Machine Company eventually became IBM.