Timeline of invention
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
This is a list of inventions, listed in chronological order.
Significant inventions not assigned
- the arch - used extensively by Rome but existing earlier
- the canoe and the boat
- cultivation of lactic acid bacteria, used on milk, vegetables and skin
- other types of bacteria, for example used for tanning and producing vinegar
- the pulley
- the screw
- soap
- the stirrup
- the use of yeast for making wine, beer and bread
Significant inventions, arranged in chronological order
Note: Dates for inventions are often controversial. Inventions are often invented by several inventors around the same time, or may be invented in an impractical form many years before another inventor improves the invention into a practical form. Where there is ambiguity, the date of the first practical, fielded, version of the invention should be used here.
8th millennium BC
- Domestication of farm animals (sheep and goats, Persia)
- cultivation of cereals in Mesopotamia
- first walled town (Jericho)
7th millennium BC
4th millennium BC
33rd century BC
31st century BC
3rd millennium BC
- ideographic writing in China
- bronze
- tents
- sledges - Scandinavia
- levers
27th century BC
- Pyramids in Ancient Egypt. See also Egyptology
23rd century BC
22nd century BC
- True astronomical observation - Mesopotamia
- Spherical geometry in Babylon
21st century BC
- Cretan writing
19th century BC
- Babylonian cuneiform
- Code of Hammurabi - invention of codified municipal law
18th century BC
- Linear A - Hagia Triada
16th century BC
- Phonetic spelling developed by Phoenicians
15th century BC
7th century BC
- Coinage, Discovery of irrational numbers
460s BC
- First atomic theory - Democritus
410s BC
- heliocentric solar system with spherical Sun ,Moon, Venus, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn - Philolaus
400s BC
350s BC
- rotation of Earth -Hereclides
220s BC
- measurement of Circumference of the Earth - Eratosthenes
- Archimedes
- Specific gravity
- concept of limit
- Archimedean solids
- false attribution of hydraulic screw pump as archimedes screw
- parabolic mirror
- Compass - a south pointing spoonlike lodestone in Han dynasty.
150s BC
100s BC
- Glass-blowing in Syria
1-99
100-199
200-299
300-399
400-499
500-599
600-699
700-799
- 700 - Windmills in Persia
- 770 (approximately) - Oldest printed work, the Million Charms of Empress Shotoku in Japan
800-899
900-999
- Gunpowder (in China: some ref says 8th century?)
1000-1099
1100-1099
1200-1299
- 1234: First known, datable use of cast metal movable type, in Korea
- 1249: Gunpowder formula: Roger Bacon
1300-1399
1400-1499
- 15th century: Rifle
- 1450: Moveable type in Europe: Johann Gutenberg
- 1480: Nautical astrolabe: Martin Behaim
- 1480: Parachute: Leonardo da Vinci
1500-1599
1600-1699
- 1608: Refracting telescope: Hans Lippershey
- 1609: Telescope in astronomy: Galileo Galilei
- 1610: First unambiguous, documented microscope: Galileo Galilei
- 1620: Slide rule: William Oughtred
- 1642: Adding machine: Blaise Pascal
- 1643: Barometer: Evangelista Torricelli
- 1645: Vacuum pump: Otto von Guericke
- 1657: Pendulum clock: Christiaan Huygens
1700-1799
- 1705: Engine - steam piston: Thomas Newcomen
- 1709: Piano: Bartolomeo Cristofori
- 1710: Thermometer: Rene Antoine Ferchault de Reaumur
- 1714: Mercury thermometer: Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit
- 1730: Mariner's quadrant: Thomas Godfrey
- 1731: Sextant: John Hadley
- 1733: Flying shuttle: John Kay
- 1742: Franklin stove: Benjamin Franklin
- 1750: Flatboat: Jacob Yoder
- 1752: Lightning rod: Benjamin Franklin
- 1762: Iron smelting process: Jared Eliot
- 1767: Spinning Jenny: James Hargreaves
- 1769: Steam engine: James Watt
- 1769: Water Frame: Richard Arkwright
- 1775: Submarine Turtle: David Bushnell
- 1777: Card making machine: Oliver Evans
- 1777: Circular saw: Samuel Miller
- 1779: Spinning Mule: Samuel Crompton
- 1785: Power loom: Edmund Cartwright
- 1785: Automatic flour mill: Oliver Evans
- 1783: Multitubular boiler engine: John Stevens
- 1783: Bifocals: Benjamin Franklin
- 1783: Hot air balloon: Montgolfier brothers
- 1784: Shrapnel shell: Henry Shrapnel
- 1785: Parachute: Jean Pierre Blanchard
- 1787: Non-condensing high pressure Engine: Oliver Evans
- 1791: Steamboat: John Fitch
- 1790: Cut and head nail machine: Jacob Perkins
- 1793: Cotton gin: Eli Whitney
- 1793: Moldboard plow: Thomas Jefferson
- 1793: Optical telegraph: Claude Chappe
- 1797: Cast iron plow: Charles Newbold
- 1798: Vaccination: Edward Jenner
- 1799: Seeding machine: Eliakim Spooner
1800-1899
1800s
- 1800: Electric battery: Alessandro Volta
- 1802: Screw propeller steamboat Phoenix: John Stevens
- 1802: gas stove: Zachaeus Andreas Winzler
- 1805: Submarine Nautilus: Robert Fulton
- 1805: Refrigerator: Oliver Evans
- 1807: Steamboat Clermont: Robert Fulton
- 1808: Band saw: William Newberry
- 1819: Standard diving dress: Augustus Siebe
1810s
- 1811: Gun- Breechloader: Thornton (?)
- 1814: Steam Locomotive (Blucher): George Stephenson
- 1816: Miner's safety lampDavy lamp:Humphry Davy
- 1816: Hand printing press: George Clymer
- 1816: Metronome: Johann Nepomuk Maelzel (reputed)
- 1817: Kaleidoscope: David Brewster
- 1819: Breech loading flintlock: John Hall
- 1819: Stethoscope: Rene Theophile Hyacinthe Laennec
1820s
- 1822: Artificial teeth: C.M. Graham
- 1823: Electromagnet: William Sturgeon
- 1827: Insulated wire: Joseph Henry
- 1827: Friction match: John Walker
- 1826: Photography: Joseph Nicephore Niepce
- 1826: internal combustion engine: Samuel Morey
1830s
- 1831: Multiple coil magnet: Joseph Henry
- 1831: Magnetic acoustic telegraph: Joseph Henry
- 1831: Reaper: Cyrus McCormick
- 1834: Electric motor: Thomas Davenport
- 1835: Photogenic Drawing: William Henry Fox Talbot
- 1835: Revolver: Samuel Colt
- 1835: Morse code: Samuel Morse
- 1836: Improved screw propeller: John Ericsson
- 1837: Photography: Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre
- 1837: Steel plow: John Deere
- 1838: Electric telegraph: Charles Wheatstone
- 1839: Vulcanization of rubber: Charles Goodyear
1840s
- 1840: Ship w/subwater machinery Princeton: John Ericsson
- 1840: artificial fertilizer: Justus von Liebig
- 1842: Anaesthesia: Crawford Long
- 1843: Typewriter: Charles Thurber
- 1844: Telegraph: Samuel Morse
- 1845: Portland cement: William Aspdin
- 1845: Double tube tire: Robert Thomson
- 1846: Sewing machine: Elias Howe
- 1846: Rotary printing press: Richard M. Hoe
- 1849: Safety pin: Walter Hunt
- 1849: Hydraulic turbine: James B. Francis
1850s
- 1852: Airship: Henri Giffard
- 1852: Passenger elevator: Elisha Otis
- 1852: Gyroscope: Léon Foucault
- 1853: Glider: Sir George Cayley
- 1855: Bunsen burner: Robert Bunsen
- 1856: Steel process: Henry Bessemer
- 1858: Undersea telegraph cable: Fredrick Newton Gisborne
- 1858: Shoe sole sewing machine: Lyman R. Blake
- 1858: Mason jar: John Mason
- 1859: Oil drill: Edwin L. Drake
- 1860: Linoleum: Fredrick Walton
1860s
- 1860: Repeating rifle: Oliver F. Winchester, Christopher Spencer
- 1860: Self-propelled torpedo: Ivan Lupis-Vukić
- 1861: Ironclad USS Monitor: John Ericsson
- 1861: Furnace for steel: Wilhelm von Siemens
- 1862: Revolving machine gun: Richard J. Gatling
- 1862: Mechanical submarine: Narcis Monturiol i Estarriol
- 1863: Player piano: Henri Fourneaux
- 1864: Sleeping car: George Pullman
- 1865: Compression ice machine: Thaddeus Lowe
- 1866: Dynamite: Alfred Nobel
- 1867: Practical Typewriter: Christopher L. Sholes
- 1868: Typewriter: Carlos Glidden, James Densmore and Samuel Soule
- 1868: Air brake: George Westinghouse
- 1868: Lawn mower: Hills Budding Ferrabee (???)
- 1868: Oleomargarine: Mege Mouries
- 1869: Vacuum cleaner: I.W. McGaffers
1870s
- 1870: Magic Lantern movie projector: Henry R. Heyl
- 1870: Stock ticker: Thomas Alva Edison
- 1871: Cable car on rails: Andrew S. Hallidie
- 1871: Compressed air rock drill: Simon Ingersoll
- 1872: Celluloid: John W. Hyatt
- 1872: Adding machine: Edmund D. Barbour
- 1874: Electric street car: Stephen Dudle Field
- 1874: Barbed wire: Joseph Glidden, Jacob Haish
- 1875: Dynamo: William A. Anthony
- 1875: Gun- (magazine): B. Hotchkiss
- 1875: Automobile, experimental: Siegfried Marcus
- 1876: Telephone: Alexander Graham Bell
- 1876: Telephone: Elisha Gray
- 1876: Carpet sweeper: Melville Bissell
- 1876: Gasoline carburettor: Daimler
- 1877: Induction motor: Nikola Tesla
- 1877: Phonograph: Thomas Alva Edison
- 1877: Electric welding: Elihu Thomson
- 1878: Cathode ray tube: William Crookes
- 1878: Transparent film: Eastman Goodwin
- 1878: Rebreather: Henry Fleuss
- 1879: Incandescent Light bulb: Thomas Alva Edison
- 1879: Automobile engine: Karl Benz
- 1879: Cash register: James Ritty
- 1879: Automobile (Patent): George B. Seldon ... note did NOT invent auto
1880s
- 1880: Photophone: Alexander Graham Bell
- 1880: Roll film: George Eastman
- 1880: Safety razor: Kampfe Brothers
- 1880: Seismograph: John Milne
- 1881: Electric welding machine: Elihu Thomson
- 1882: Electric fan: Schuyler Skatts Wheeler
- 1882: Electric flat iron: Henry W. Seely
- 1883: Auto engine - compression ignition: Gottlieb Daimler
- 1884: Linotype machine: Ottmar Mergenthaler
- 1884: Fountain pen: Lewis Waterman NB: Did not invent fountain pen, nor even "first practical fountain pen". Started manufacture in 1883, too.
- 1884: Punched card accounting: Herman Hollerith
- 1884: Trolley car, (electric): Frank Sprague, Karel Van de Poele
- 1885: Automobile, differential gear: Karl Benz
- 1885: Motor cycle: Gottlieb Daimler
- 1885: Alternating current transformer: William Stanley]]
- 1886: Gasoline engine: Gottlieb Daimler
- 1886: Gramophone: Tainter & Bell
- 1887: Monotype machine: Tolbert Lanston
- 1887: Record disk: Emile Berliner
- 1887: Automobile, (gasoline): Gottlieb Daimler
- 1888: Polyphase AC Electric power system: Nikola Tesla (30 related patents.)
- 1888: Kodak hand camera: George Eastman
- 1888: Ballpoint pen: John Loud
- 1888: Pneumatic tube tire: John Boyd Dunlop
- 1888: Harvester-thresher: Matteson (?)
- 1888: Kinematograph: Augustin Le Prince
- 1889: Automobile, (steam): Sylvester Roper
1890s
- 1890: Pneumatic Hammer: Charles B. King
- 1891: Automobile Storage Battery: William Morrison
- 1891: Zipper: Whitcomb Judson
- 1891: Carborundum: Edward G. Acheson
- 1892: Color photography: Frederic E. Ives
- 1892: Automobile, (electric): William Morrison
- 1892: Automobile, (gasoline): Duryea Brothers
- 1892: Automatic telephone exchange (electromechanical): Almon Strowger - First in commercial service.
- 1893: Photographic gun: E.J. Marcy
- 1893: Half tone engraving: Frederick Ives
- 1893: Wireless communication: Nikola Tesla
- 1895: Phatoptiken projector: Woodville Latham
- 1895: Phantascope: C. Francis Jenkins
- 1895: Disposable blades: King C. Gillette
- 1895: Diesel engine: Rudolf Diesel
- 1895: Radio signals: Guglielmo Marconi
- 1896: Vitascope: Thomas Armat
- 1896: Steam turbine: Charles Curtis
- 1896: Electric stove: William S. Hadaway
- 1897: Automobile, magneto: Robert Bosch
- 1898: Remote control: Nikola Tesla
- 1899: Automobile self starter: Clyde J. Coleman
- 1899: Magnetic tape recorder: Valdemar Poulsen
- 1899: Gas turbine: Charles Curtis
1900-1999
1900s
- 1900: Rigid dirigible airship: Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin
- 1901: Improved wireless transmitter: Reginald Fessenden
- 1901: Mercury vapor lamp: Peter C. Hewitt
- 1901: paperclip: Johan Vaaler
- 1902: Radio magnetic detector: Guglielmo Marconi
- 1902: Radio telephone: Poulsen Reginald Fessenden
- 1902: Rayon cellulose ester: Arthur D. Little
- 1903: Electrocardiograph (EKG): Willem Einthoven
- 1903: Powered Airplane: Wilbur Wright and Orville Wright
- 1903: Bottle machine: Michael Owens
- 1904: Thermionic valve: John Ambrose Fleming
- 1904: Separable Attachment Plug: Harvey Hubbell
- 1905: Radio tube diode: John Ambrose Fleming
- 1906: Triode amplifier: Lee DeForest
- 1907: Radio amplifier: Lee DeForest
- 1907: Radio tube triode: Lee DeForest
- 1907: Vacuum cleaner, (electric): James Spangler
- 1907: Washer, (electric): Alva Fisher (Hurley Corporation)
- 1909: Monoplane: Henry W. Walden
- 1909: Bakelite: Leo Baekeland
- 1909: Gun silencer: Hiram Percy Maxim
1910s
- 1911: Gyrocompass: Elmer A. Sperry
- 1911: Automobile self starter (perfected): Charles F. Kettering
- 1911: Air conditioner: Willis Haviland Carrier
- 1911: Cellophane: Jacques Brandenburger
- 1911: Hydroplane: Glenn Curtiss
- 1912: Regenerative radio circuit: Edwin H. Armstrong
- 1913: Improved X-Ray: William D. Coolidge
- 1913: Double acting wrench: Robert Owen
- 1913: Cracking process for Gasoline: William M. Burten
- 1913: Gyroscope stabilizer: Elmer A. Sperry
- 1913: Geiger counter: Hans Geiger
- 1913: Radio receiver, cascade tuning: Ernst Alexanderson
- 1913: Radio receiver, heterodyne: Reginald Fessenden
- 1914: Radio transmitter triode mod.: Ernst Alexanderson
- 1914: Liquid fuel rocket: Robert Goddard
- 1914: Tank, military: Ernest Dunlop Swinton
- 1915: Filament Tungsten: Irving Langmuir
- 1915: Searchlight arc: Elmer A. Sperry
- 1915: Radio tube oscillator: Lee DeForest
- 1916: Browning Gun: John Browning
- 1916: Thompson submachine gun: John T. Thompson
- 1916: Incandescent gas lamp: Irving Langmuir
- 1917: Sonar echolocation: Paul Langevin
- 1918: Super heterodyne: Edwin H. Armstrong
- 1918: Radio crystal oscillator: A.M. Nicolson
- 1918: Pop-up toaster: Charles Strite
- 1919: the Theremin: Leon Theremin
- 1919: First licensed radio station, KDKA AM, in Pennsylvania, USA
1920s
- 1922: RADAR: Robert Watson-Watt Taylor Young Breit Tuve
- 1922: Technicolor: Herbert T. Kalmus
- 1923: Arc tube: Ernst Alexanderson
- 1923: Sound film: Lee DeForest
- 1923: Television Electronic: Philo Farnsworth
- 1923: Wind tunnel: Max Munk
- 1923: Autogyro: Juan de la Cierva
- 1925: ultra-centrifuge: Theodor Svedberg - used to determine molecular weights
- 1925: Television Iconoscope: Vladimir Zworykin
- 1925: Television Nipkow System: C. Francis Jenkins
- 1925: Telephoto: C. Francis Jenkins
- 1926: Television Mechanical Scanner: John Logie Baird
- 1926: Aerosol spray: Rotheim
- 1927: Mechanical cotton picker: John Rust
- 1928: sliced bread: Otto Frederick Rohwedder
- 1928: Electric dry shaver: Jacob Schick
- 1929: Electroencephelograph (EEG): Hans Berger
- 1929: Antibiotics
1930s
- 1930: Neoprene: Wallace Carothers
- 1930: Nylon: Wallace Carothers
- 1931: the Radio telescope: Karl Jansky Grote Reber
- 1932: Polaroid glass: Edwin H. Land
- 1935: microwave radar: Robert Watson-Watt
- 1935: Spectrophotometer: Arthur C. Hardy
- 1935: Casein fiber: Earl Whittier Stephen
- 1935: Hammond Organ: Laurens Hammond
- 1937: Jet engine: Frank Whittle Hans von Ohain
- 1938: Fiberglass: Games Slayter John H. Thomas
- 1938: Computer: Konrad Zuse
- 1939: FM radio: Edwin H. Armstrong
- 1939: Helicopter: Igor Sikorsky
1940s
- 1942: Bazooka Rocket Gun: L. A. Skinner C. N. Hickman
- 1943: Aqualung: Jacques Cousteau and Emile Gagnan
- 1944: Electron spectrometer: Deutsch Elliot Evans
- 1944: the digital computer
- 1945: Nuclear weapons (but note: chain reaction theory: 1933)
- 1946: microwave oven: Percy Spencer
- 1947: Transistor: William Shockley, Walter Brattain, John Bardeen
- 1948: Long Playing Record: Peter Goldmark
- 1948: Polaroid camera: Edwin Land
- 1949: Atomic clocks
1950s
- 1951: Liquid Paper: Bette Nesmith Graham
- 1952: fusion bomb: Edward Teller and Stanislaw Ulam
- 1952: hovercraft: Christopher Cockerell
- 1953: maser: Charles Townes
- 1954: transistor radio from Regency TR1 (USA)
- 1954: first nuclear power reactor
- 1954: geodesic dome: Buckminster Fuller
- 1955: Velcro: George de Mestral
- 1957: Jet Boat: William Hamilton NZ
- 1958: the Integrated circuit: Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments, Robert Noyce at Fairchild Semiconductor
- 1959: snowmobile: Joseph-Armand Bombardier
1960s
- 1960: lasers: Theodore Maiman, at Hughes Aircraft
- 1962: Communications satellites: Arthur C. Clarke
- 1960s: Packet switching: Donald Davies and Paul Baran
- 1965: 8-track tapes: William Powell Lear
- 1969: the ARPANET, predecessor of the Internet
1970s
- 1970: Fiber optics
- 1971: E-mail: Ray Tomlinson
- 1971: the Microprocessor
- 1971: the Pocket calculator
- 1973: Ethernet: Bob Metcalfe and D. R. Boggs
- 1977: the personal computer (dated from Commodore PET)
- 1978: LaserVision releases the laser disc player
- 1979: the Walkman: Akio Morita, Masaru Ibuka, Kozo Ohsone
- 1979: the cellular telephone (first commercially fielded version, NTT)
- 197x: Leaf blower (exact year unknown)
1980s
- 1981: the Xerox Star is the first computer to feature a WIMP graphical user interface
- 1982: Sony and Philips release compact discs
- 1983: the Internet Protocol, which created the Internet as we know it
- 1985: polymerase chain reaction: Kary Mullis
- 1985: DNA fingerprinting: Alec Jeffreys
- 1989: the World Wide Web: Tim Berners-Lee
1990s
- 1991: the GPL, enabling the free software movement: Richard Stallman
- 1993: Global Positioning System
- 1995: wiki software: Ward Cunningham
- 1996: cloning of mammals: Ian Wilmut and others
- 1997: DVD Launched in 7 US cities, after the standard was agreed upon after about two years of debate.
2000-2099
- put significant 21st century inventions here
See also
- Invention
- List of inventors
- List of inventions named after people
- List of timelines
- List of technologies
Other Technology Timelines
- Timeline of agriculture and food technology
- Timeline of clothing and textiles technology
- Timeline of communication technology
- Timeline of lighting technology
- Timeline of low temperature technology
- Timeline of materials technology
- Timeline of microscope technology
- Timeline of motor and engine technology
- Timeline of photography technology
- Timeline of rocket and missile technology
- Timeline of temperature and pressure measurement technology
- Timeline of time measurement technology
- Timeline of transportation technology
- Timeline of underwater technology