125 Years of IEEE History

IEEE is celebrating its 125^th anniversary in 2009, as it traces is origin to the beginning of its predecessor society AIEE in 1884. This paper is a high-level overview of that history, the history of the IRE, IEEE´s other predecessor organization, and the merger that created IEEE in 1963, all placed in the context of the evolution of electrotechnologies. It thus provides background for the more specialized papers given during the conference.