Classic research papers

Support vector machine:
B. E. Boser, I. M. Guyon and V. N. Vapnik. A training algorithm for optimum margin classifiers. Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Workshop on Computational Learning Theory 5: 144-152, 1992.

Boosting:
R. E. Schapire. The strength of weak learnability. Machine Learning 5(2):197–227, 1990.

Learnability:
A. Blumer, A. Ehrenfeucht, D. Haussler and M. K. Warmuth. Learnability and the Vapnik-Chervonenkis dimension. Journal of the ACM 36(4): 929–965, 1989.

Decision Trees:
J.R. Quinlan. Induction of Decision Trees. Machine Learning 1: 81-106, 1986.

Bootstrap:
B. Efron. Bootstrap methods: Another look at the Jackknife.The Annals of Statistics 7: 1-26, 1979.

NP-completeness:
S. A. Cook. The complexity of theorem-proving procedures. Proceedings of the 3rd Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing: 151-158, 1971.

The Christian B. Anfinsen Papers: Protein Folding and the Thermodynamic Hypothesis, 1950-1962

Structure of DNA:
J.D. Watson and F. H. C. Crick. Molecular structure of nucleic acids.Nature 4356: 737-738, 1953.

Turing test:
A. M. Turing. Computing machinery and intelligence. Mind 236: 433-460, 1950.

von Neumann architecture:
J. von Neumann. First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC, 1945.

Turing machine:
A. M. Turing. On Computable Numbers, With an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem.Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society 42: 230-265, 1936, correction 43: 544-546, 1937.

Gödel's incompleteness theorem:
K. Gödel. Über formal unentscheidbare Sätze der Principia Mathematica und verwandter Systeme I. Monatshefte für Mathematik und Physik 38: 173-98, 1931. A modern translation: M. Hirzel. On formally undecidable propositions of Principia Mathematica and related systems I, 2000.