Technology timeline

by Chris Woodford. Last updated: June 25, 2018.

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. It's not a complete history of everything; it's simply another way to explore the 450 or so detailed articles on
our website.

Not all of our articles are listed in the timeline; you can find a more complete list in our A-Z index.

Date Invention or discovery Articles on Explain that stuf

Prehistory

4–5 billion Sun starts to produce energy. Solar cells

years ago Energy

10 million Humans make the first tools from stone, wood, antlers, and bones. Tools and machines
years ago.

1–2 million Humans discover fire. Biofuels

years ago Candles
Car engines
Jet engines

25,000– Humans first wear clothes. Biomimetic clothing

50,000 BCE

10,000 BCE Earliest boats are constructed. Ships and boats

8000– 9000 Beginnings of human settlements and agriculture. Biofuels

BCE Water

6000– 7000 Hand-made bricks first used for construction in the Middle East. Brick (ceramics)
BCE
 Ancient
times

4000 BCE Iron used for the first time in decorative ornaments. Iron and steel

3500– 5000 Glass is made by people for the first time. Glass
BCE

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 Digital pens
Mesopotamia (part of modern Iraq). Typewriters

~2500 BCE Ancient Egyptians produce papyrus, a crude early version of paper. Paper

3000– Bronze Age: Widespread use of copper and its important alloy bronze. Copper
600BCE Alloys
Metals

2000 BCE Water-raising and irrigation devices like the shaduf (shadoof), invented by the Elevators
Ancient Egyptians, introduce the idea of lifting things using counterweights. Tools and machines
Water

c1700 BCE Semites of the Mediterranean develop the alphabet. Digital pens

1000 BCE Iron Age begins: iron is widely used for making tools and weapons in many Iron and steel
parts of the world.

~250 BCE Ancient Egyptians invent lighthouses, including the huge Lighthouse of Fresnel lenses
Alexandria.

600 BCE Thales of Miletus discovers static electricity. Electricity

Static electricity

c.150– 100 Gear-driven, precision clockwork machines (such as the Antikythera Clockwork
BCE mechanism) are in existence.
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 Romans develop the first, basic concrete called pozzolana. Steel and concrete
CE

Middle Ages

~600 CE Windmills are invented in the Middle East. Wind turbines

700–900 CE Chinese invent gunpowder and fireworks. Bullets

Fireworks

800–1300 CE Thanks to inventors such as the Banū Mūsā brothers and al-Jazari, the Islamic Clockwork
"Golden Age" sees the development of a wide range of technologies, Cams and cranks
including ingenious clocks and feedback mechanisms that are the ancestors Robots
of modern automated factory machines.

1000 CE ?? Chinese develop eyeglasses by fixing lenses to frames that fit onto people's Lenses
faces.

1206 Arabic engineer al-Jazari invents a flushing hand-washing machine, one of the Toilets
ancestors of the modern toilet.

1450 Johannes Gutenberg pioneers the modern printing press, using rearrangeable Printing
metal letters called movable type.

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 Microscopes
microscope. 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 Magnetism
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 Space telescopes
discoveries.

mid-17th Antoni van Leeuwenhoek and Robert Hooke independently develop Microscopes
century microscopes. Electron microscopes

1643 Galileo's pupil Evangelista Torricelli builds the first mercury barometer for Barometers
measuring air pressure.

1650s Christiaan Huygens develops the pendulum clock (using Galileo's earlier Pendulum clocks
discovery that a swinging pendulum can be used to keep time).

1687 Isaac Newton formulates his three laws of motion. Motion

1700s Bartolomeo Cristofori invents the piano. Pianos

18th century

1701 English farmer Jethro Tull begins the mechanization of agriculture by Tractors
inventing the horse-drawn seed drill.

1703 Gottfried Leibniz pioneers the binary number system now used in virtually all How computers work
computers. 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 Car engines
actually builds one.

1737 William Champion develops a commercially viable process for extracting zinc Zinc
on a large scale.

1757 John Campbell invents the sextant, an improved navigational device that Satellite navigation
enables sailors to measure latitude.

1730s– 1770s John Harrison develops reliable chronometers (seafaring clocks) that allow Quartz clocks and watches
sailors to measure longitude accurately for the first time. Satellite navigation

1751 Axel Cronstedt isolates nickel. Nickel

1756 Axel Cronstedt notices steam when he boils a rock—and discovers zeolites. Zeolites

1769 Wolfgang von Kempelen develops a mechanical speaking machine: the Speech synthesizers
world's first speech synthesizer.

1770s Abraham Darby III builds a pioneering iron bridge at a place now called Bridges
Ironbridge in England.

~1780 Josiah Wedgwood (or Thomas Massey) invents the pyrometer. Pyrometers

1783 French Brothers Joseph-Michel Montgolfier and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier Hot-air balloons
make the first practical hot-air balloon.

1791 Reverend William Gregor, a British clergyman and amateur geologist, Titanium
discovers a mysterious mineral that he calls menachite. Four years later,
Martin Klaproth gives it its modern name, titanium.

19th century

1800 Italian Alessandro Volta makes the first battery (known as a Voltaic pile). Electricity
Batteries
1801 Joseph-Marie Jacquard invents the automated cloth-weaving loom. The History of computers
punched cards it uses to store patterns help to inspire programmable
computers.

1803 Henry and Sealy Fourdrinier develop the papermaking machine. Paper

1806 Humphry Davy develops electrolysis into an important chemical technique Electrolyzers
and uses it to identify a number of new elements.

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

1827 Joseph Niepce 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 Digital cameras
called Daguerreotypes. Photography

1830s William Henry Fox Talbot develops a way of making and printing photographs Digital cameras
using reverse images called negatives. Photography

1830s– 1840s Charles Wheatstone and William Cooke, in England, and Samuel Morse, in Telephones
the United States, develop the electric telegraph (a forerunner of the
telephone).

1836 Englishman Francis Petit-Smith and Swedish-American John Ericsson Propellers

independently develop propellers with blades for ships.
1839 Charles Goodyear finally perfects a durable form of rubber (vulcanized Rubber
rubber) after many years of unsuccessful experimenting.

1840s Scottish physicist James Prescott Joule outlines the theory of the conservation Energy
of energy. Great physics experiments

1840s Scotsman Alexander Bain invents a primitive fax machine based on chemical Fax machines
technology.

1849 James Francis invents a water turbine now used in many of the world's Turbines
hydropower plants. 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 Pasteurization
to kill off bacteria.

1850s Italian Giovanni Caselli develops a mechanical fax machine called the Fax machines
pantelegraph.

1860s Frenchman Étienne Lenoir and German Nikolaus Otto pioneer the internal Car engines
combustion engine. Cars, history of

1860s James Clerk Maxwell figures out that radio waves must exist and sets out Radio
basic laws of electromagnetism.

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 Typewriters
keyboard.

1876 Alexander Graham Bell patents the telephone, though the true ownership of Telephones
the invention remains controversial even today.
1870s Thomas Edison develops the phonograph, the first practical method of CD players
recording and playing back sound on metal foil. MP3 players

1870s Lester Pelton invents a useful new kind of water turbine known as a Pelton Turbines
wheel.

1877 Thomas Edison invents his sound-recording machine or phonograph—a Record players
forerunner of the record player and CD player. Sound

1877 Edward Very invents the flare gun (Very pistol) for sending distress flares at Flares
sea.

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 Aluminum
way of making aluminum.

1880s Carrie Everson invents new ways of mining silver, gold, and copper. Copper
Gold
Silver

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, Electricity
in opposition to Thomas Edison, becomes a staunch advocate of AC power. Electric motors
Induction motors
Power plants

1899 Everett F. Morse invents the optical pyrometer for measuring temperatures at Pyrometers
a safe distance.

1890s French brothers Joseph and Louis Lumiere invent movie projectors and open Camcorders
the first movie theater. Projection TV

1890s German engineer Rudolf Diesel develops his diesel engine—a more efficient Diesel engines
internal combustion engine without a sparking plug.

1894 Physicist Sir Oliver Lodge sends the first ever message by radio wave in Radio
Oxford, England.

1895 German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen discovers X rays. X rays

1895 American Ogden Bolton, Jr. invents the electric bicycle. Electric bikes

20th century

1901 Guglielmo Marconi sends radio-wave signals across the Atlantic Ocean from Radio
England to Canada

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
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 Air pollution
(smokestack pollution scrubber). Electrostatic smoke
precipitators

1908 American industrialist and engineer Henry Ford launches the Ford Model T, Car engines
the world's first truly affordable car. Cars, history of

1909 German chemists Fritz Haber and Zygmunt Klemensiewicz develop the glass pH meters
electrode, enabling very precise measurements of acidity.

1912 American chemist Gilbert Lewis describes the basic chemistry that leads to Lithium-ion batteries
practical, lithium-ion rechargeable batteries (though they don't appear in a
practical, commercial form until the 1990s).

1912 Hans Geiger develops the Geiger counter, a detector for radioactivity. Geiger counters

1919 Francis Aston pioneers the mass spectrometer and uses it to discover many Mass spectrometers
isotopes.

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 Bullets
rocket. Space rockets

1920s German engineer Gustav Tauschek and American Paul Handel independently OCR
develop primitive optical character recognition (OCR) scanning systems.

1920s Albert W. Hull invents the magnetron, a device that can generate microwaves Magnetrons
from electricity. Microwave ovens

1921 Karel Capek and his brother coin the word "robot" in a play about artificial Robots
humans.

1921 John Larson develops the polygraph ("lie detector") machine. Polygraphs

1928 Thomas Midgley, Jr. invents coolant chemicals for air conditioners and Air conditioners
refrigerators. 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. Passive solar
Solar cells

1930s Wallace Carothers develops neoprene (synthetic rubber used in wetsuits) and Kevlar
nylon, the first popular synthetic clothing material. 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 Magnetrons
for use in airplane radar navigation systems. Radar

1942 Enrico Fermi builds the first nuclear chain reactor at the University of Nuclear power
Chicago.

1945 US government scientist Vannevar Bush proposes a kind of desk-sized Electronic books
memory store called Memex, which has some of the features later World Wide Web
incorporated into electronic books and the World Wide Web (WWW).

1947 John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley invent the transistor, Amplifiers
which allows electronic equipment to made much smaller and leads to the Electronics
modern computer revolution. History of computers
Transistors

1949 Bernard Silver and N. Joseph Woodland patent barcodes—striped patterns Barcodes and barcode
that are initially developed for marking products in grocery stores. scanners

1950s Charles Townes and Arthur Schawlow invent the maser (microwave laser). Lasers
Gordon Gould coins the word "laser" and builds the first optical laser in 1958.

1950s Stanford Ovshinksy develops various technologies that make renewable Batteries
energy more practical, including practical solar cells and improved Electric bicycles
rechargeable batteries. Electric cars
Solar cells

1950s European bus companies experiment with using flywheels as regenerative Flywheels
 brakes

1950s Percy Spencer accidentally discovers how to cook with microwaves, Microwave ovens
inadvertently inventing the microwave oven.

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- Endoscopes
optic gastroscope.

1958 Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce, working independently, develop the integrated History of computers
circuit. integrated circuits
Transistors

1959 IBM and General Motors develop Design Augmented by Computers-1 (DAC- Computer graphics
1), the first computer-aided design (CAD) system.

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- Photochromic lenses
sensitive (photochromic) glass.

1963 Ivan Sutherland develops Sketchpad, one of the first computer-aided design Computer graphics
programs.

1964 IBM helps to pioneer e-commerce with an airline ticket reservation system E-commerce
called SABRE.

1965 Frank Pantridge develops the portable defibrillator for treating cardiac arrest Defibrillators
patients.
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 Molecular beam epitaxy
crystals called molecular beam epitaxy (MBE).

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 books
electronic book, which he nicknames the Dynabook.

1969 Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith invent the CCD (charge-coupled device): CCDs
the light-sensitive chip used in digital cameras, webcams, and other modern Digital cameras
optical equipment.

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 Computer networks
he names Ethernet. Most computers hooked up to the Internet now use it. 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 History of computers
personal home computers

1970s– 1980s James Dyson invents the bagless, cyclonic vacuum cleaner. Vacuum cleaners

1970s– 1980s Scientists including Charles Bennett, Paul Benioff, Richard Feynman, and Quantum computers
David Deutsch sketch out how quantum computers might work.

1980s Japanese electrical pioneer Akio Morita develops the Sony Walkman, the first CD players
truly portable player for recorded music. MP3 players

1981 Stung by Apple's success, IBM releases its own affordable personal computer History of computers
(PC).

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 Flash memory
memory that can store information even when the power is off.

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 CD players
and Philips corporations.

1987 Larry Hornbeck, working at Texas Instruments, develops DLP® projection— DLP® projectors
now used in many projection TV systems.

1989 Tim Berners-Lee invents the World Wide Web. Internet

World Wide Web
1990 German watchmaking company Junghans introduces the MEGA 1, believed to Radio-controlled clocks
be the world's first radio-controlled wristwatch. Quartz clocks and watches

1991 Linus Torvalds creates the first version of Linux, a collaboratively written Computers
computer operating system. Linux

1994 American-born mathematician John Daugman perfects the mathematics that Iris scans
make iris scanning systems possible.

1994 Israeli computer scientists Alon Cohen and Lior Haramaty invent VoIP for VoIP
sending telephone calls over the Internet.

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 HDTV
United States.

1997 Electronics companies agree to make Wi-Fi a worldwide standard for wireless Wireless Internet
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 Electronic books
Wales.

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 Roomba
robot. 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 Computers
announced by MIT computing pioneer Nicholas Negroponte.

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 Pneumatics
system. Pneumatic transport tube

2015 Supercomputers (the world's fastest computers) are now a mere 30 times less Supercomputers
powerful than human brains.

2016 Three nanotechnologists win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for building Nanotechnology
miniature machines out of molecules.

2017 Quantum computing shows signs of becoming a practical technology. Quantum computers