Today is the birthday of Doug Engelbart, best known for inventing the mouse. He was born January 30th, 1925 and his invention changed the way we interacted with computers.

Douglas Engelbart is best known for inventing the computer mouse - a device that may be obvious when you've seen it but revolutionary when first conceived.

Douglas Engelbart, born January 30, 1925 and his prototype mouse

In this video, filmed by Wired to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the mouse in December 2008, Doug Engelbart explains how he came up with the idea.

To find out more about Doug Engelbart and his visionary ideas see our history article about him and to find out why the mouse was such a good idea see Mouse's tale.