The origins of the finite element method can be traced back to the 1950s when engineers started to solve numerically structural mechanics problems in aeronautics.
Since then, the field of applications has widened steadily and nowadays encompasses nonlinear solid mechanics, fluid/structure interactions, flows in industrial or geophysical settings, multicomponent reactive turbulent flows, mass transfer in porous media, viscoelastic flows in medical sciences, electromagnetism, wave scattering problems, and option pricing (to cite a few examples).