The development of simulation has progressed through several key decades:

• 1940s: Researchers on the Manhattan project (John von Neumann, Stanislaw Ulan, Edward Teller, Herman Kahn) developed the Monte Carlo method to study neutron scattering.
• 1960s: The first special-purpose simulation languages were created, notably SIMSCRIPT by Harry Markowitz at the RAND Corporation.
• 1970s: Research began on the mathematical foundations of simulation.
• 1980s: This period saw the development of PC-based simulation software, graphical user interfaces (GUIs), and object-oriented programming.
• 1990s: Advancements included web-based simulation, sophisticated animated graphics, simulation-based optimization, and Markov-chain Monte Carlo methods.