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A human head viewed from above with lots of inventions packed inside

Technology timeline

Inventions don't generally happen by accident or in a random order: science and technology progress in a very logical way, with each new discovery leading on from the last. You can see that in our mini chronology of invention, below. Please note: it's not meant to be a complete history of everything, and it doesn't include inventions or technologies that aren't covered somehow, somewhere on this website. It's really just another way to explore the articles on the site (for which there is also an A-Z index).

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Date Invention or discovery Articles on Explain that stuff
Prehistory

4–5 billion years ago

Sun starts to produce energy.

Solar cells
Energy

~3.5 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

10,000 BCE
Earliest boats are constructed.
Ships and boats
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.
Brick (ceramics)
Ancient times
4000 BCE
Iron used for the first time in decorative ornaments.
Iron and steel
3500– 5000 BCE
Glass is made by people for the first time.
Glass
3500 BCE
Humans invent the wheel.
Tools and machines
Wheels and axles
3000 BCE
First written languages are developed by the Sumerian people of southern Mesopotamia (part of modern Iraq). Communications
Typewriters
~2500 BCE Ancient Egyptians produce papyrus, a crude early version of paper. Paper
Communications
3000– 600BCE Bronze Age: Widespread use of copper and its important alloy bronze. Copper
Alloys
Metals
2000 BCE Water-raising and irrigation devices like the shaduf (shadoof), invented by the Ancient Egyptians, introduce the idea of lifting things using counterweights. Cranes
Elevators
Tools and machines
c1700 BCE
Semites of the Mediterranean develop the alphabet.
Communications
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
Static electricity
History of electricity

500BCE– 900CE Nazca people of Peru are believed to have experimented with balloon flight. Hot-air balloons
400BCE– 300BCE Chinese experiment with flying kites. Airplanes
History of flight

~250 BCE

Ancient Egyptians invent lighthouses, including the huge Lighthouse of Alexandria.

Fresnel lenses

~300– 200 BCE

Chinese invent early magnetic direction finders.

Compasses

~250 BCE

Archimedes invents the screw pump for moving water and other materials.

Tools and machines
c.150– 100 BCE
Gear-driven, precision clockwork machines (such as the Antikythera mechanism) are in existence. Clockwork
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
Steam turbines

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
Middle Ages
~600 CE
Windmills are invented in the Middle East.
Wind turbines
700–900 CE
Chinese invent gunpowder and fireworks.
Bullets
Fireworks
Space rockets
800–1300 CE
Thanks to inventors such as the Banū Mūsā brothers and al-Jazari, the Islamic "Golden Age" sees the development of a wide range of technologies, including ingenious clocks and feedback mechanisms that are the ancestors of modern automated factory machines. Clockwork
Cams and cranks
Robots
1000 CE ??
Chinese develop eyeglasses by fixing lenses to frames that fit onto people's faces.
Lenses
1206
Arabic engineer al-Jazari invents a flushing hand-washing machine, one of the ancestors of the modern toilet.
Toilets
1232 CE
Chinese repel Mongol invaders using early rockets.
Space rockets
1450
Johannes Gutenberg pioneers the modern printing press, using rearrangeable metal letters called movable type.
Printing
1470s
The first parachute is sketched on paper by an unknown inventor. Parachutes
16th century
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
1596
Sir John Harington describes one of the first modern flush toilets. Toilets
17th century
~1600
Galileo Galilei designs a basic thermometer.
Thermometer
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

History of electricity
1609
Galileo Galilei builds a practical telescope and makes new astronomical discoveries.
Space telescopes
mid-17th century
Antoni van Leeuwenhoek and Robert Hooke independently develop microscopes. Microscopes
Electron microscopes
1643 Galileo's pupil Evangelista Torricelli builds the first mercury barometer for measuring air pressure.
Barometers
1650s Christiaan Huygens develops the pendulum clock (using Galileo's earlier discovery that a swinging pendulum can be used to keep time). Pendulum clocks
1687
Isaac Newton formulates his three laws of motion and gravity.
Motion
Gravity
1700s
Bartolomeo Cristofori invents the piano.
Pianos
18th century
1701
English farmer Jethro Tull begins the mechanization of agriculture by inventing the horse-drawn seed drill. Tractors
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. Metals
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
1756 Axel Cronstedt notices steam when he boils a rock—and discovers zeolites. Zeolites
1769 Wolfgang von Kempelen develops a mechanical speaking machine: the world's first speech synthesizer. Speech synthesizers
1770s
Abraham Darby III builds a pioneering iron bridge at a place now called Ironbridge in England. Bridges
~1780
Josiah Wedgwood (or Thomas Massey) invents the pyrometer. Pyrometers
1783 French Brothers Joseph-Michel Montgolfier and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier make the first practical hot-air balloon. Hot-air balloons
1791 Reverend William Gregor, a British clergyman and amateur geologist, discovers a mysterious mineral that he calls menachite. Four years later, Martin Klaproth gives it its modern name, titanium. Titanium
19th century
1800
Italian Alessandro Volta makes the first battery (known as a Voltaic pile).
Electricity
Batteries
History of electricity
1801
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
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
1806
Sir William Congreve develops long-range military rockets, based on an earlier Indian technology known as the Mysore rocket. Space rockets
1807
Humphry Davy develops the electric arc lamp. Xenon lamps
1814
George Stephenson builds the first practical steam locomotive.
Steam engines
1816
Robert Stirling invents the efficient Stirling engine.
Stirling engines
1820s– 1830s
Michael Faraday builds primitive electric generators and motors.
Electricity generators
Electric motors
Hub motors
1824
Nicolas Sadi Carnot sets out his hugely influential theory of engine efficiency.
Heat engines
1827
Joseph Nicéphore Niépce makes the first modern photograph.
Photography
Digital cameras
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
1836
Englishman Francis Petit-Smith and Swedish-American John Ericsson independently develop propellers with blades for ships. Propellers
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
Great physics experiments
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
1871
Frank Wenham, a British aeronautical engineer, invents the wind tunnel.
Wind tunnels
Aerodynamics
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
1877
Edward Very invents the flare gun (Very pistol) for sending distress flares at sea.
Flares
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
1881 Jacques d'Arsonval suggests heat energy could be extracted from the oceans.
OTEC (Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion)
1883
George Eastman invents plastic photographic film.
Digital cameras
Plastics
1884
Charles Parsons develops the steam turbine.
Steam turbines
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
1888
John Boyd Dunlop patents air-filled (pneumatic) tires.
Pneumatics
1888
Nikola Tesla patents the alternating current (AC) electric induction motor and, in opposition to Thomas Edison, becomes a staunch advocate of AC power.
Electricity
Electric motors
Induction motors
Power plants
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.
Projection TV
1890s
German engineer Rudolf Diesel develops his diesel engine—a more efficient internal combustion engine without a sparking plug.
Diesel engines
1890s
Russian Konstantin Tsiolkovsky figures out the theory of space rockets. Space rockets
1894
Physicist Sir Oliver Lodge sends the first ever message by radio wave in Oxford, England.
Radio
1895
German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen discovers X rays.
X rays
1895
American Ogden Bolton, Jr. invents the electric bicycle.
Electric bikes
1884
Charles G. Curtis develops the compound, impulse steam turbine.
Steam turbines
1898
Nikola Tesla invents remote, radio control.
Remote control
20th century
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
History of flight
1905
Albert Einstein explains the photoelectric effect. Photoelectric cells
1905
Samuel J. Bens invents the chainsaw. Chainsaws
1906
Willis Carrier pioneers the air conditioner.
Air conditioners
1906
Mikhail Tswett discovers chromatography.
Chromatography
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
1910
Romanian-born Henri-Marie Coandă builds a simple jet plane, but it never actually flies.
Jet engines History of flight
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
1916 Robert Hutchings Goddard, an American physicist, publishes influential ideas on building space rockets. Space rockets
1919 Francis Aston pioneers the mass spectrometer and uses it to discover many isotopes. Mass spectrometers
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-fueled space rocket.
Bullets
Space rockets
1920s
German engineer Gustav Tauschek and American Paul Handel independently develop primitive optical character recognition (OCR) scanning systems. OCR
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
1921
John Larson develops the polygraph ("lie detector") machine. Forensic science
1928
Thomas Midgley, Jr. invents coolant chemicals for air conditioners and refrigerators.
Air conditioners
Refrigerators
1928
The electric refrigerator is invented.
Refrigerators
1920s– 1930s Frank Whittle of England and Hans Pabst von Ohain of Germany develop rival jet engines. Jet engine
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.
Passive solar
Solar cells
1930s
Wallace Carothers develops neoprene (synthetic rubber used in wetsuits) and nylon, the first popular synthetic clothing material. Kevlar
Nomex
Nylon
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
1932
Arne Olander discovers the shape memory effect in a gold-cadmium alloy.
Shape memory alloys
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
1945 Arthur C. Clarke conceives the idea of the communications satellite, a space-based signal "mirror" that can bounce radio waves from one side of Earth to the other. Satellites
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
1949 Bernard Silver and N. Joseph Woodland patent barcodes—striped patterns that are initially developed for marking products in grocery stores. Barcodes and barcode scanners
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
European bus companies experiment with using flywheels as regenerative brakes Flywheels
1950s
Percy Spencer accidentally discovers how to cook with microwaves, inadvertently inventing the microwave oven.
Microwave ovens
1956
British computer pioneer Alan Turing describes an "imitation game" for testing whether machines can think. It's now known as the Turing test.
Artificial intelligence
1952
American John W. Hetrick and German Walter Linderer independently invent the automobile airbag.
Airbags
1954
Indian physicist Narinder Kapany pioneers fiber optics.
Fiber optics
1955
US electrical engineer Eugene Polley invents the TV remote control.
Remote control
1956
First commercial nuclear power is produced at Calder Hall, Cumbria, England.
Nuclear power plants
1956
US computer scientist John McCarthy coins the term "artificial intelligence."
Artificial intelligence
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. Fiber optics
1958
Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce, working independently, develop the integrated circuit.
History of computers
integrated circuits
Transistors
1959
IBM and General Motors develop Design Augmented by Computers-1 (DAC-1), the first computer-aided design (CAD) system. Computer graphics
1960s Joseph-Armand Bombardier perfects his Ski-Doo® snowmobile. Snowmobiles
1960 Theodore Maiman invents the ruby laser.
Lasers
1962 William Armistead and S. Donald Stookey of Corning Glass Works invent light-sensitive (photochromic) glass. Photochromic lenses
1962 Nick Holonyak invents the LED (light-emitting diode) while working at General Electric. Diodes and LEDs
1963 Ivan Sutherland develops Sketchpad, one of the first computer-aided design programs.
Computer graphics
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
1966
Robert H. Dennard of IBM invents dynamic random access memory (DRAM).
Computer memory
1967
Japanese company Noritake invents the vacuum fluorescent display (VFD). Vacuum fluorescent displays
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
Robert W. Gore develops an ingenious waterproof material called GORE-TEX® by stretching slippery, nonstick PTFE (Teflon®). GORE-TEX®
1969
Long before computers become portable, Alan Kay imagines building an electronic book, which he nicknames the Dynabook.
Electronic books
1969
Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith invent the CCD (charge-coupled device): the light-sensitive chip used in digital cameras, webcams, and other modern optical equipment.
CCDs
Digital cameras
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
Electronic ink is pioneered by Nick Sheridon at Xerox PARC. Electronic ink and paper
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
1974 First grocery-store purchase of an item coded with a barcode. Barcodes and barcode scanners
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
1970s– 1980s
Scientists including Charles Bennett, Paul Benioff, Richard Feynman, and David Deutsch sketch out how quantum computers might work. Quantum computers
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
1981
Fujio Masuoka files a patent for flash memory—a type of reusable computer memory that can store information even when the power is off. Flash memory
1981– 1982
Alexei Ekimov and Louis E. Brus (independently) discover quantum dots.
Quantum dots
1983
Compact discs (CDs) are launched as a new way to store music by the Sony and Philips corporations.
CD players
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
1994
Japanese Masahiro Hara invents a two-dimensional barcode known as the QR Code®.
QR codes and 2D barcodes
1994
Israeli computer scientists Alon Cohen and Lior Haramaty invent VoIP for sending telephone calls over the Internet.
VoIP
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
1996
WRAL-HD broadcasts the first high-definition television (HDTV) signal in the United States. HDTV
1997
Electronics companies agree to make Wi-Fi a worldwide standard for wireless Internet.
Wireless Internet
21st century
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
2001 Scott White, Nancy Sottos, and colleagues develop self-healing materials. Self-healing materials
2002
iRobot Corporation releases the first version of its Roomba® vacuum cleaning robot.
Roomba
Robots
2004
Electronic voting plays a major part in a controversial US Presidential Election.
Touchscreens
2004
Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov discover graphene. Graphene
2005
A pioneering low-cost laptop for developing countries called OLPC is announced by MIT computing pioneer Nicholas Negroponte.
Computers
2007
Amazon.com launches its Kindle electronic book (e-book) reader.
Electronic books
2007
Apple introduces a touchscreen cellphone called the iPhone.
Cellphones
Touchscreens
2010
Apple releases its touchscreen tablet computer, the iPad.
Computers
Touchscreens
2010
3D TV starts to become more widely available.
3D Television
Television
2013
Elon Musk announces "hyperloop"—a giant, pneumatic tube transport system. Pneumatics
Pneumatic transport tube
2015
Supercomputers (the world's fastest computers) are now a mere 30 times less powerful than human brains. Supercomputers
2016 Three nanotechnologists win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for building miniature machines out of molecules. Nanotechnology
2019 Google claims to have achieved "quantum supremacy"—with a quantum computer that calculates faster than a conventional one. Quantum computers
2020 DeepMind, Google/Alphabet's artificial intelligence computer program, cracks the classic problem of protein folding. Neural networks
Artificial intelligence
2022
NASA unveils Space Launch System (SLS), a new moon rocket 15 percent more powerful than the Saturn V rocket from the Apollo era. Space rockets
2023 Microsoft announces a new version of its Bing search engine incorporating ChatGPT, an "artificially intelligent" chatbot, for smarter answers to search queries. Artificial intelligence
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Woodford, Chris. (2008/2022) Technology timeline. Retrieved from https://www.explainthatstuff.com/timeline.html. [Accessed (Insert date here)]

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