| Date |
Invention or discovery |
Articles on Explainthatstuff |
|
4-5 billion years ago
|
Sun starts to produce energy.
|
Solar cells
Energy
|
10 million years ago.
|
Humans make the first tools from stone, wood,
antlers, and bones.
|
Tools and machines
|
|
1-2 million years ago
|
Humans discover fire.
|
Biofuels
Candles
Car engines
Jet engines
|
25,000-50,000 BCE
|
Humans first wear clothes.
|
Biomimetic clothing
|
8000-9000 BCE
|
Beginnings of human settlements and agriculture.
|
Biofuels
Water
|
6000-7000 BCE
|
Hand-made bricks first used for construction in the Middle East.
|
Bricks |
4000 BCE
|
Iron used for the first time in decorative ornaments.
|
Iron and steel |
3500 BCE
|
Humans invent the wheel.
|
Tools and machines
Wheels and axles
|
c1700 BCE
|
Semites of the Mediterranean develop the
alphabet.
|
Digital pens |
0-1500 BCE
|
Ancient societies invent some of the first
machines for moving water and agriculture.
|
Tools and machines
Water
|
1000 BCE
|
Iron Age begins: iron is widely used for making tools and weapons in many parts of the world.
|
Iron and steel |
|
600 BCE
|
Thales of Miletus discovers static electricity.
|
Electricity
|
c.50 BCE
|
Roman engineer Vitruvius perfects the modern,
vertical water wheel.
|
Turbines
|
|
62 CE
|
Hero of Alexandria, a Greek scientist, pioneers steam power.
|
Steam engines
|
|
105 CE
|
Ts'ai Lun makes the first paper in China.
|
Paper
|
27 BCE-395 CE
|
Romans develop the first, basic concrete called
pozzolana.
|
Steel and concrete
|
~600 CE
|
Windmills are invented in the Middle East.
|
Wind turbines
|
700-900 CE
|
Chinese invent gunpowder and fireworks.
|
Bullets
Fireworks
|
1000 CE ??
|
Chinese develop eyeglasses by fixing lenses to
frames that fit onto people's faces.
|
Lenses
Photochromic lenses
|
1450
|
Johannes Gutenberg pioneers the modern printing
press, using rearrangeable metal letters called movable type.
|
Typewriters
|
| 1530s |
Gerardus Mercator helps to revolutionize navigation with better mapmaking.
|
Satellite navigation
|
1590
|
A Dutch spectacle maker named Zacharias Janssen makes the first compound microscope.
|
Microscopes
Electron microscopes
|
~1600
|
Galileo Galilei designs a basic thermometer.
|
Thermometer
|
16th century
|
Antoni van Leeuwenhoek and Robert Hooke
independently develop microscopes.
|
Microscopes
Electron
microscopes
|
1600
|
William Gilbert publishes his great book De Magnete describing how Earth behaves like a giant magnet. It's the beginning of the scientific study of magnetism. |
Magnetism
|
1609
|
Galileo Galilei builds a practical telescope and
makes new astronomical discoveries.
|
Space telescopes
|
1643
|
Galileo's pupil Evangelista Torricelli builds the first mercury barometer for measuring air pressure.
|
Barometers
|
1687
|
Isaac Newton formulates his three laws of motion.
|
Motion |
1700s
|
Bartolomeo Cristofori invents the piano.
|
Pianos
|
1703
|
Gottfried Leibniz pioneers the binary number
system now used in virtually all computers.
|
How computers
work
History of computers
|
|
1712
|
Thomas Newcomen builds the first practical (but stationary)
steam engine.
|
Steam engines
|
| 1700s |
Christiaan Huygens conceives the internal combustion engine, but never actually builds one.
|
Car engines |
| 1737 |
William Champion develops a commercially viable process for extracting zinc on a large scale.
|
Zinc |
| 1757 |
John Campbell invents the sextant, an improved navigational device that enables sailors to measure latitude.
|
Satellite navigation
|
| 1730s-1770s |
John Harrison develops reliable chronometers (seafaring clocks) that allow sailors to measure longitude accurately for the first time.
|
Quartz clocks and watches
Satellite navigation
|
| 1751 |
Baron Axel Frederic Cronstedt (1722–65) isolates nickel. |
Nickel |
1770s
|
Abraham Darby III builds a pioneering iron
bridge at a place now called Ironbridge in England
|
Bridges
|
1800
|
Italian Alessandro Volta makes the first battery
(known as a Voltaic pile).
|
Electricity
Batteries
|
1803
|
Henry and Sealy Fourdrinier develop the papermaking machine.
|
Paper |
1806
|
Humphry Davy develops electrolysis into an important chemical technique and uses it to identify a number of new elements. |
Electrolyzers |
1807
|
Humphry Davy develops the electric arc lamp. |
Xenon lamps |
1814
|
George Stephenson builds the first practical
steam locomotive.
|
Steam engines |
1820s-1830s
|
Michael Faraday builds primitive electric generators and motors.
|
Electricity generators
Electric motors
Hub motors |
1827
|
Joseph Niepce makes the first modern photograph.
|
Digital cameras
Photography
|
1830s
|
William Sturgeon develops the first practical
electric motor.
|
Electric motors
Hub motors
|
1830s
|
Louis Daguerre invents a practical method of
taking pin-sharp photographs called Daguerreotypes.
|
Digital cameras
Photography
|
1830s
|
William Henry Fox Talbot develops a way of
making and printing photographs using reverse images called negatives.
|
Digital cameras
Photography |
1830s-1840s
|
Charles Wheatstone and William Cooke, in
England, and Samuel Morse, in the United States, develop the electric
telegraph (a forerunner of the telephone).
|
Telephones
|
1839
|
Charles Goodyear finally perfects a durable form
of rubber (vulcanized rubber) after many years of unsuccessful
experimenting.
|
Rubber
|
1840s
|
Scottish physicist James Prescott Joule outlines
the theory of the conservation of energy.
|
Energy |
1840s
|
Scotsman Alexander Bain invents a primitive fax
machine based on chemical technology.
|
Fax machines
|
1849
|
James Francis invents a water turbine now used
in many of the world's hydropower plants.
|
Turbines
Water
|
1850s
|
Henry Bessemer pioneers a new method of making steel in large quantities.
|
Iron and steel
|
1850s
|
Louis Pasteur develops pasteurization: a way of preserving food by heating it to kill off bacteria.
|
Pasteurization
|
1850s
|
Italian Giovanni Caselli develops a mechanical
fax machine called the pantelegraph.
|
Fax machines |
1860s
|
Frenchman Étienne Lenoir and German Nikolaus
Otto pioneer the internal combustion engine.
|
Car engines
Cars, history of
|
1860s
|
James Clerk Maxwell figures out that radio waves
must exist and sets out basic laws of electromagnetism.
|
Radio
|
1860s
|
Fire extinguishers are invented.
|
Fire extinguisher
|
1861
|
Elisha Graves Otis invents the elevator with built-in safety brake.
|
Elevators
|
1867
|
Joseph Monier invents reinforced concrete.
|
Reinforced concrete |
1868
|
Christopher Latham Sholes invents the modern
typewriter and QWERTY keyboard.
|
Typewriters |
1876
|
Alexander Graham Bell patents the telephone,
though the true ownership of the invention remains controversial even
today.
|
Telephones |
1870s
|
Thomas Edison develops the phonograph, the first
practical method of recording and playing back sound on metal foil.
|
CD players
MP3 players |
1870s
|
Lester Pelton invents a useful new kind of water
turbine known as a Pelton wheel.
|
Turbines |
1877
|
Thomas Edison invents his sound-recording machine or phonograph—a forerunner of the record player and CD player.
|
Record players
Sound
|
1880
|
Thomas Edison patents the modern incandescent
electric lamp.
|
Incandescent
lamps
|
1880
|
Pierre and Paul-Jacques Curie discover the piezoelectric effect.
|
Piezoelectricity
|
1880s
|
Thomas Edison opens the world's first power
plants.
|
Power plants
|
1880s
|
Charles Chamberland invents the autoclave (steam sterilizing machine).
|
Autoclaves
|
1880s
|
Charles and Julia Hall and Paul Heroult
independently develop an affordable way of making aluminum.
|
Aluminum
|
1880s
|
Carrie Everson invents new ways of mining
silver, gold, and copper.
|
Copper
Gold
Silver
|
1882
|
Nikola Tesla develops the alternating current
(AC) electric motor and, in opposition to Thomas Edison, becomes a
staunch advocate of AC power.
|
Electricity
Electric motors
Power plants
|
1883
|
Charles Eastman invents plastic photographic
film.
|
Digital cameras
Plastics
|
1884
|
Charles Parsons develops the steam turbine.
|
Steam engines
Turbines
|
1885
|
Karl Benz builds a gasoline-engined car.
|
Car engines
|
1886
|
Josephine Cochran invents the dishwasher.
|
Dishwashers
|
1888
|
Friedrich Reinitzer discovers liquid crystals.
|
LCD screens and displays
|
1899
|
Everett F. Morse invents the optical pyrometer for measuring temperatures at a safe distance.
|
Pyrometers
|
1890s
|
French brothers Joseph and Louis Lumiere invent
movie projectors and open the first movie theater.
|
Camcorders
Projection TV
|
1890s
|
German engineer Rudolf Diesel develops his diesel engine—a more efficient internal combustion engine
without a sparking plug.
|
Diesel engines
|
1895
|
German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen discovers X rays.
|
X rays
|
1900s
|
Joseph-Marie Jacquard invents the automated
cloth-weaving loom. The punched cards it uses to store patterns help to
inspire programmable computers.
|
History of
computers |
1901
|
Guglielmo Marconi sends radio-wave signals
across the Atlantic Ocean from England to Canada
|
Radio |
1901
|
The first electric vacuum cleaner is developed.
|
Vacuum cleaners
|
1903
|
Brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright build the
first engine-powered airplane.
|
Airplanes
Jet engines
|
1906
|
Willis Carrier pioneers the air conditioner.
|
Air conditioners
|
1907
|
Leo Baekeland develops Bakelite, the first
popular synthetic plastic.
|
Plastics |
1907
|
Alva Fisher invents the electric clothes washer.
|
Clothes washer
|
1906-8
|
Frederick Gardner Cottrell develops the electrostatic smoke precipitator (smokestack pollution scrubber).
|
Air pollution
Electrostatic smoke precipitators
|
1908
|
American industrialist and engineer Henry Ford launches the Ford Model T, the world's first truly affordable car.
|
Car engines
Cars, history of
|
1909
|
German chemists Fritz Haber and Zygmunt Klemensiewicz develop the glass electrode, enabling very precise measurements of acidity.
|
pH meters |
1912
|
American chemist Gilbert Lewis describes the basic chemistry that leads to practical, lithium-ion rechargeable batteries (though they don't appear in a practical, commercial form until the 1990s).
|
Lithium-ion batteries |
| 1912 |
Hans Geiger develops the Geiger counter, a detector for radioactivity. |
Geiger counters |
1920s
|
John Logie Baird develops mechanical television.
|
Television
LCD TV |
1920s
|
Philo T. Farnsworth invents modern electronic
television. |
Television
LCD TV |
1920s
|
Robert H. Goddard develops the principle of the
modern, liquid-fuelled space rocket.
|
Bullets
Space rockets |
1920s
|
Albert W. Hull invents the magnetron, a device that can generate microwaves from electricity.
|
Magnetrons
Microwave ovens
|
1921
|
Karel Capek and his brother coin the word "robot" in a play
about artificial humans.
|
Robots
|
1928
|
Thomas Midgley, Jr. invents coolant chemicals
for air conditioners and refrigerators.
|
Air conditioners
Refrigerators
|
1928
|
The electric refrigerator is invented.
|
Refrigerators
|
1930s
|
Peter Goldmark pioneers color television.
|
Television
LCD TV
|
1930s
|
Laszlo and Georg Biro pioneer the modern
ballpoint pen.
|
Digital pens
|
1930s
|
Maria Telkes creates the first solar-powered
house.
|
Eco homes
Solar cells
|
1930s
|
Wallace Carothers develops neoprene (synthetic
rubber used in wetsuits) and nylon, the first popular synthetic clothing
material. |
Kevlar
Nomex
Wetsuits
|
1930s
|
Robert Watson Watt oversees the development of
radar.
|
Radar
|
1930s
|
Arnold Beckman develops the electronic pH meter.
|
pH meters |
1931
|
Harold E. Edgerton invents the xenon flash lamp for high-speed photography.
|
Xenon lamps
|
1936
|
W.B. Elwood invents the magnetic reed switch.
|
Reed switches
|
1938
|
Chester Carlson invents the principle of
photocopying (xerography).
|
Photocopiers
|
1938
|
Roy Plunkett accidentally invents a nonstick
plastic coating called Teflon.
|
Gore-Tex
Nonstick pans
|
1939
|
Igor Sikorsky builds the first truly practical
helicopter.
|
Helicopters
|
1940s
|
English physicists John Randall and Harry Boot develop a compact magnetron for use in airplane radar navigation systems.
|
Magnetrons
Radar
|
1942
|
Enrico Fermi builds the first nuclear chain
reactor at the University of Chicago.
|
Nuclear power
|
1945
|
US government scientist Vannevar Bush proposes a kind of desk-sized memory store called Memex, which has some
of the features later incorporated into electronic books and the World Wide Web (WWW).
|
Electronic books
World Wide Web |
1947
|
John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William
Shockley invent the transistor, which allows electronic equipment to
made much smaller and leads to the modern computer revolution.
|
Amplifiers
Electronics
History of computers
Transistors
|
1950s
|
Charles Townes and Arthur Schawlow invent the
maser (microwave laser). Gordon Gould coins the word "laser" and builds
the first optical laser in 1958.
|
Lasers |
1950s
|
Stanford Ovshinksy develops various technologies that make renewable
energy more practical, including practical solar cells and improved
rechargeable batteries.
|
Batteries
Electric bicycles
Electric cars
Solar cells
|
1950s
|
Percy Spencer accidentally discovers how to cook
with microwaves, inadvertently inventing the microwave oven.
|
Microwave ovens
|
1954
|
Indian physicist Narinder Kapany pioneers fiber optics.
|
Fiber optics
Endoscopes
|
1956
|
First commercial nuclear power is produced at Calder Hall, Cumbria, England.
|
Nuclear power plants
|
1957
|
Soviet Union (Russia and her allies) launch the
Sputnik space satellite.
|
Satellites
|
1957
|
Lawrence Curtiss, Basil Hirschowitz, and Wilbur Peters build the first fiber-optic gastroscope.
|
Endoscopes
|
1958
|
Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce, working
independently, develop the integrated circuit.
|
History of computers
integrated circuits
Transistors
|
1960
|
Theodore Maiman invents the ruby laser.
|
Lasers
|
1964
|
IBM helps to pioneer e-commerce with an airline
ticket reservation system called SABRE.
|
E-commerce
|
1965
|
Frank Pantridge develops the portable defibrillator for treating cardiac arrest patients.
|
Defibrillators
|
1966
|
Stephanie Kwolek patents a super-strong plastic
called Kevlar.
|
Kevlar
|
1968
|
Alfred Y. Cho and John R. Arthur, Jr invent a precise way of making single crystals called molecular beam epitaxy (MBE).
|
Molecular beam epitaxy
|
1969
|
World's first solar power station opened in
France.
|
Solar cells
Energy
|
1969
|
Long before computers become portable, Alan Kay imagines building an electronic book, which he nicknames the Dynabook.
|
Electronic books |
1969
|
Astronauts walk on the Moon.
|
Space rockets
|
1960s
|
Douglas Engelbart develops the computer mouse.
|
Computer mouse
|
1960s
|
James Russell invents compact discs.
|
CD players
|
1971
|
Ted Hoff builds the first single-chip computer
or microprocessor.
|
History of
computers |
1973
|
Martin Cooper develops the first handheld
cellphone (mobile phone).
|
Cellphones
|
1973
|
Robert Metcalfe figures out a simple way of
linking computers together that he names Ethernet. Most computers
hooked up to the Internet now use it.
|
Computer
networks
Internet
|
1975
|
Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman invent public-key cryptography.
|
Encryption |
1975
|
Pico Electronics develops X-10 home automation system.
|
Smart homes |
1976
|
Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs launch the Apple I:
one of the world's first personal home computers
|
History of
computers |
1970s-1980s
|
James Dyson invents the bagless, cyclonic vacuum
cleaner.
|
Vacuum cleaners
|
1980s
|
Japanese electrical pioneer Akio Morita develops
the Sony Walkman, the first truly portable player for recorded music.
|
CD players
MP3 players |
1981
|
Stung by Apple's success, IBM releases its own
affordable personal computer (PC).
|
History of
computers |
1981
|
The Space Shuttle makes its maiden voyage.
|
Space Shuttle |
1981
|
Patricia Bath develops laser eye surgery for
removing cataracts.
|
Lasers |
1983
|
Compact discs (CDs) are launched as a new way to
store music by the Sony and Philips corporations.
|
CD players
Blu ray
|
1987
|
Larry Hornbeck, working at Texas Instruments, develops DLP® projection—now used in many projection TV systems. |
DLP® projectors
|
1989
|
Tim Berners-Lee invents the World Wide Web.
|
Internet
World Wide Web
|
1990
|
German watchmaking company Junghans introduces the MEGA 1, believed to be the world's first radio-controlled wristwatch.
|
Radio-controlled clocks
Quartz clocks and watches
|
1991
|
Linus Torvalds creates the first version of
Linux, a collaboratively written computer operating system.
|
Computers
Linux
|
1994
|
American-born mathematician John Daugman perfects the mathematics that make iris scanning systems possible.
|
Iris scans
|
1995
|
Broadcast.com becomes one of the world's first
online radio stations.
|
Streaming media
|
1995
|
Pierre Omidyar launches the eBay auction website.
|
E-commerce |
1997
|
Electronics companies agree to make Wi-Fi a
worldwide standard for wireless Internet.
|
Wireless Internet
|
| 2001 |
Apple revolutionizes music listening by unveiling its iPod MP3 music player. |
MP3 players |
2001
|
Richard Palmer develops energy-absorbing d3o plastic.
|
Energy-absorbing materials
|
2001
|
The Wikipedia online encyclopedia is founded by Larry Sanger and Jimmy Wales.
|
Electronic books
|
2001
|
Bram Cohen develops BitTorrent file-sharing.
|
BitTorrent
Internet
|
2004
|
Electronic voting plays a major part in a
controversial US Presidential Election.
|
Touchscreens
|
2005
|
A pioneering low-cost laptop for developing
countries called OLPC is announced by MIT computing pioneer Nicholas
Negroponte.
|
OLPC
|
2007
|
Amazon.com launches its Kindle electronic book (e-book) reader.
|
Electronic books |
2007
|
Apple introduces a touchscreen cellphone called
the iPhone.
|
Cellphones
Touchscreens
|
