Thinking back to my middle school typing class (done on electric typewriters, not computers) I remember wondering why the keyboard wasn’t arranged in alphabetical order. I was recently reminded of that when my five-year-old asked me the same question. I knew that the answer was related to the frequency of use of certain letters and also the early limitations of typewriter keyboard configurations. But to get a better answer I turned to YouTube where I knew I had seen a video on the topic not that long ago. 

CNN’s The Story Behind QWERTY explains the origins of the QWERTY keyboard and why it is still the standard on computer keyboards today.