|
Year
|
Invention
|
|
10 million years ago.
|
Humans make the first
tools from stone, wood, antlers, and bones.
|
|
1–2 million years ago
|
Humans discover fire.
|
|
25,000– 50,000 BCE
|
Humans first wear
clothes.
|
|
10,000 BCE
|
Earliest boats are
constructed.
|
|
8000– 9000 BCE
|
Beginnings of human
settlements and agriculture.
|
|
6000– 7000 BCE
|
Hand-made bricks first
used for construction in the Middle East.
|
|
3500 BCE
|
Humans invent the wheel.
|
|
0– 1500 BCE
|
Ancient societies invent
some of the first machines for moving water and agriculture.
|
|
1000 BCE
|
Iron Age begins: iron is
widely used for making tools and weapons in many parts of the world.
|
|
150– 100 BCE
|
First gear-driven,
precision clockwork machine (the Antikythera mechanism) is developed.
|
|
50 BCE
|
Roman engineer Vitruvius
perfects the modern, vertical water wheel.
|
|
62 CE
|
Hero of Alexandria, a
Greek scientist, pioneers steam power.
|
|
105 CE
|
Ts'ai Lun makes the
first paper in China.
|
|
700– 900 CE
|
Chinese invent gunpowder
and fireworks.
|
|
1000 CE
|
Chinese develop
eyeglasses by fixing lenses to frames that fit onto people's faces.
|
|
1530s
|
Gerardus Mercator helps to
revolutionize navigation with better mapmaking.
|
|
1590
|
A Dutch
spectacle maker named Zacharias Janssen makes the first compound microscope
|
|
1600
|
Galileo
Galilei designs a basic thermometer.
|
|
16th century
|
Antoni van
Leeuwenhoek and Robert Hooke independently develop 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.
|
|
1609
|
Galileo
Galilei builds a practical telescope and makes new astronomical discoveries.
|
|
1643
|
Galileo's
pupil Evangelista Torricelli builds the first mercury barometer for measuring
air pressure.
|
|
1650s
|
Christiaan
Huygens develops the pendulum clock (using Galileo's earlier discovery that a
swinging pendulum can be used to keep time).
|
|
1687
|
Isaac Newton
formulates his three laws of motion.
|
|
1700
|
Bartolomeo
Cristofori invents the piano.
|
|
1703
|
Gottfried
Leibniz pioneers the binary number system now used in virtually all computers.
|
|
1712
|
Thomas
Newcomen builds the first practical (but stationary) steam engine.
|
|
1700
|
Christiaan
Huygens conceives the internal combustion engine, but never actually builds
one.
|
|
1737
|
William
Champion develops a commercially viable process for extracting zinc on a
large scale
|
|
1730s– 1770s
|
John
Harrison develops reliable chronometers (seafaring clocks) that allow sailors
to measure longitude accurately for the first time.
|
|
1780
|
Josiah
Wedgwood (or Thomas Massey) invents the pyrometer.
|
|
1783
|
French Brothers Joseph-Michel
Montgolfier and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier make the first practical hot-air
balloon.
|
|
1800
|
Italian
Alessandro Volta makes the first battery (known as a Voltaic pile).
|
|
1803
|
Henry and
Sealy Fourdrinier develop the papermaking machine.
|
|
1806
|
Humphry Davy
develops electrolysis into an important chemical technique and uses it to
identify a number of new elements.
|
|
1807
|
Humphry Davy
develops the electric arc lamp.
|
|
1814
|
George
Stephenson builds the first practical steam locomotive.
|
|
1816
|
Robert
Stirling invents the efficient Stirling engine.
|
|
1820s– 1830s
|
Michael
Faraday builds primitive electric generators and motors.
|
|
1827
|
Joseph
Niepce makes the first modern photograph.
|
|
1830s
|
William
Sturgeon develops the first practical electric motor.
|
|
1850
|
Louis
Pasteur develops pasteurization: a way of preserving food by heating it to
kill off bacteria
|
|
1850
|
Italian
Giovanni Caselli develops a mechanical fax machine called the pantelegraph.
|
|
1860
|
Frenchman
Étienne Lenoir and German Nikolaus Otto pioneer the internal combustion
engine.
|
|
1860
|
James Clerk
Maxwell figures out that radio waves must exist and sets out basic laws of
electromagnetism.
|
|
1861
|
Elisha
Graves Otis invents the elevator with built-in safety brake.
|
|
1867
|
Joseph
Monier invents reinforced concrete.
|
|
1868
|
Christopher
Latham Sholes invents the modern typewriter and QWERTY keyboard.
|
|
1876
|
Alexander
Graham Bell patents the telephone, though the true ownership of the invention
remains controversial even today.
|
|
1870
|
Thomas
Edison develops the phonograph, the first practical method of recording and
playing back sound on metal foil.
|
|
1877
|
Thomas
Edison invents his sound-recording machine or phonograph—a forerunner of the
record player and CD player.
|
|
1880
|
Thomas
Edison patents the modern incandescent electric lamp.
|
|
1880
|
Thomas
Edison opens the world's first power plants.
|
|
1880
|
Charles
Chamberland invents the autoclave (steam sterilizing machine).
|
|
1883
|
Charles
Eastman invents plastic photographic film.
|
|
1884
|
Charles
Parsons develops the steam turbine.
|
|
1885
|
Karl Benz
builds a gasoline-engined car.
|
|
1888
|
Friedrich
Reinitzer discovers liquid crystals.
|
|
1888
|
Nikola Tesla
patents the alternating current (AC) electric induction motor and, in
opposition to Thomas Edison, becomes a staunch advocate of AC power.
|
|
1899
|
Everett F.
Morse invents the optical pyrometer for measuring temperatures at a safe
distance.
|
|
1890
|
French
brothers Joseph and Louis Lumiere invent movie projectors and open the first
movie theater.
|
|
1890
|
German engineer Rudolf Diesel
develops his diesel engine—a more efficient internal combustion engine
without a sparking plug.
|
|
1895
|
German
physicist Wilhelm Röntgen discovers X rays.
|
|
1895
|
American
Ogden Bolton, Jr. invents the electric bicycle.
|
|
1901
|
The first
electric vacuum cleaner is developed.
|
|
1903
|
Brothers
Wilbur and Orville Wright build the first engine-powered airplane.
|
|
1905
|
Albert
Einstein explains the photoelectric effect.
|
|
1906
|
Willis
Carrier pioneers the air conditioner
|
|
1906
|
Mikhail
Tswett discovers chromatography.
|
|
1907
|
Leo
Baekeland develops Bakelite, the first popular synthetic plastic.
|
|
1912
|
Hans Geiger
develops the Geiger counter, a detector for radioactivity.
|
|
1919
|
Francis
Aston pioneers the mass spectrometer and uses it to discover many isotopes
|
|
1920
|
John Logie Baird develops
mechanical television.
|
|
1920
|
Philo T.
Farnsworth invents modern electronic television.
|
|
1920
|
Robert H.
Goddard develops the principle of the modern, liquid-fueled space rocket.
|
|
1920
|
German engineer Gustav
Tauschek and American Paul Handel independently develop primitive optical
character recognition (OCR) scanning systems.
|
|
1920
|
Albert W.
Hull invents the magnetron, a device that can generate microwaves from
electricity.
|
|
1928
|
Thomas
Midgley, Jr. invents coolant chemicals for air conditioners and refrigerators.
|
|
1928
|
The electric
refrigerator is invented.
|
|
1930
|
Peter
Goldmark pioneers color television.
|
|
1930
|
Laszlo and
Georg Biro pioneer the modern ballpoint pen.
|
|
1930
|
Maria Telkes
creates the first solar-powered house.
|
|
1930
|
Wallace
Carothers develops neoprene (synthetic rubber used in wetsuits) and nylon,
the first popular synthetic clothing material.
|
|
1930
|
Robert
Watson Watt oversees the development of radar.
|
|
1930
|
Arnold
Beckman develops the electronic pH meter.
|
|
1931
|
Harold E.
Edgerton invents the xenon flash lamp for high-speed photography.
|
|
1932
|
Arne Olander discovers the
shape memory effect in a gold-cadmium alloy.
|
|
1939
|
Igor
Sikorsky builds the first truly practical helicopter.
|
|
1940
|
English
physicists John Randall and Harry Boot develop a compact magnetron for use in
airplane radar navigation systems.
|
|
1942
|
Enrico Fermi builds the first
nuclear chain reactor at the University of Chicago.
|
|
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.
|
|
1950
|
Charles Townes and Arthur
Schawlow invent the maser (microwave laser). Gordon Gould coins the word
"laser" and builds the first optical laser in 1958.
|
|
1954
|
Indian
physicist Narinder Kapany pioneers fiber optics.
|
|
1958
|
Jack Kilby
and Robert Noyce, working independently, develop the integrated circuit.
|
|
1959
|
IBM and
General Motors develop Design Augmented by Computers-1 (DAC-1), the first
computer-aided design (CAD) system.
|
|
1960
|
Theodore
Maiman invents the ruby laser.
|
|
1973
|
Martin Cooper develops the
first handheld cellphone (mobile phone).
|
|
1975
|
Whitfield
Diffie and Martin Hellman invent public-key cryptography.
|
|
1976
|
Steve
Wozniak and Steve Jobs launch the Apple I: one of the world's first personal
home computers
|
|
1989
|
Tim
Berners-Lee invents the World Wide Web.
|
|
1996
|
WRAL-HD
broadcasts the first high-definition television (HDTV) signal in the United
States.
|