The document traces the history and development of microprocessors from 1971 to the present. It begins with the Intel 4004, the first commercial microprocessor released in 1971. Important subsequent microprocessors included the Intel 8080 in 1974 and 8085 in 1977. The Pentium brand was introduced in 1993 and included 64-bit x86 instruction sets. The Core 2 brand from 2006 featured single, dual, and quad-core processors. The document also provides basic explanations of how microprocessors work and their components like the ALU, registers, and control unit.