Binary is the very foundation that all of computer science is built on.

It's really easy once you get it, as the maths is pretty simple - its all just 1s and 0s. Oh, and you'd best get learning your powers of two. 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64.

The work done during World War 2 at Bletchley park, breaking German messages that had been encrypted using their Enigma machines is often associated with being the birth of modern day computing.