The timeline of historic inventions is a chronological list of particularly important or significant technological
invention
An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an ...
s and their
inventor
An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an ...
s, where known.
Paleolithic
The dates listed in this section refer to the earliest evidence of an invention found and dated by
archaeologists
Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscapes ...
(or in a few cases, suggested by indirect evidence). Dates are often approximate and change as more research is done, reported and seen. Older examples of any given technology are often found. The locations listed are for the site where the earliest solid evidence has been found, but especially for the earlier inventions, there is little certainty how close that may be to where the invention took place.
Lower Paleolithic
The Lower Paleolithic period lasted over 3 million years, and corresponds to the human species prior to the emergence of ''Homo sapiens''. The original divergence between humans and chimpanzees occurred 13 ( Mya), however interbreeding continued until as recently as 4 Ma, with the first species clearly belonging to the human (and not chimpanzee) lineage being ''
Australopithecus anamensis
''Australopithecus anamensis'' is a hominin species that lived approximately between 4.2 and 3.8 million years ago and is the oldest known ''Australopithecus'' species, living during the Plio-Pleistocene era.
Nearly one hundred fossil specimens ...
''. This time period is characterized as an ice age with regular periodic warmer periods –
interglacial
An interglacial period (or alternatively interglacial, interglaciation) is a geological interval of warmer global average temperature lasting thousands of years that separates consecutive glacial periods within an ice age. The current Holocene i ...
episodes.
* 3.3-2.6 Mya:
Stone tool
A stone tool is, in the most general sense, any tool made either partially or entirely out of stone. Although stone tool-dependent societies and cultures still exist today, most stone tools are associated with prehistoric (particularly Stone A ...
s – found in present-day
Kenya
)
, national_anthem = " Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"()
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, image_map2 =
, capital = Nairobi
, coordinates =
, largest_city = Nairobi
, ...
, they are so old that only a pre-human species could have invented them. The otherwise earliest known stone tools (
Oldowan
The Oldowan (or Mode I) was a widespread stone tool archaeological industry (style) in prehistory. These early tools were simple, usually made with one or a few flakes chipped off with another stone. Oldowan tools were used during the Lower ...
) were found in
Ethiopia
Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...
developed perhaps by ''
Australopithecus garhi
''Australopithecus garhi'' is a species of australopithecine from the Bouri Formation in the Afar Region of Ethiopia 2.6–2.5 million years ago (mya) during the Early Pleistocene. The first remains were described in 1999 based on several skele ...
'' or ''
Homo habilis
''Homo habilis'' ("handy man") is an extinct species of archaic human from the Early Pleistocene of East and South Africa about 2.31 million years ago to 1.65 million years ago (mya). Upon species description in 1964, ''H. habilis'' was highly ...
cooking
Cooking, cookery, or culinary arts is the art, science and craft of using heat to prepare food for consumption. Cooking techniques and ingredients vary widely, from grilling food over an open fire to using electric stoves, to baking in vario ...
, by ''
Homo habilis
''Homo habilis'' ("handy man") is an extinct species of archaic human from the Early Pleistocene of East and South Africa about 2.31 million years ago to 1.65 million years ago (mya). Upon species description in 1964, ''H. habilis'' was highly ...
''
* 1.76 Mya: Advanced (
Acheulean
Acheulean (; also Acheulian and Mode II), from the French ''acheuléen'' after the type site of Saint-Acheul, is an archaeological industry of stone tool manufacture characterized by the distinctive oval and pear-shaped "hand axes" associated ...
) stone tools in
Kenya
)
, national_anthem = " Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"()
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, image_map2 =
, capital = Nairobi
, coordinates =
, largest_city = Nairobi
, ...
by ''
Homo erectus
''Homo erectus'' (; meaning "upright man") is an extinct species of archaic human from the Pleistocene, with its earliest occurrence about 2 million years ago. Several human species, such as '' H. heidelbergensis'' and '' H. antecessor ...
''
* 1.5 Mya:
Bone tool
In archaeology, a bone tool is a tool created from bone. A bone tool can conceivably be created from almost any bone, and in a variety of methods.
Bone tools have been documented from the advent of ''Homo sapiens'' and are also known from ''Hom ...
Boat
A boat is a watercraft of a large range of types and sizes, but generally smaller than a ship, which is distinguished by its larger size, shape, cargo or passenger capacity, or its ability to carry boats.
Small boats are typically found on i ...
s.
* 500 kya:
Hafting
Hafting is a process by which an artifact, often bone, stone, or metal is attached to a ''haft'' (handle or strap). This makes the artifact more useful by allowing it to be shot (arrow), thrown by hand (spear), or used with more effective levera ...
in South Africa.
* 400 kya:
Pigment
A pigment is a colored material that is completely or nearly insoluble in water. In contrast, dyes are typically soluble, at least at some stage in their use. Generally dyes are often organic compounds whereas pigments are often inorganic compou ...
s in
Zambia
Zambia (), officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central, Southern and East Africa, although it is typically referred to as being in Southern Africa at its most central point. Its neighbours are t ...
* 400-300 kya:
Spear
A spear is a pole weapon consisting of a shaft, usually of wood, with a pointed head. The head may be simply the sharpened end of the shaft itself, as is the case with fire hardened spears, or it may be made of a more durable material fastene ...
s in
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...
likely by ''
Homo heidelbergensis
''Homo heidelbergensis'' (also ''H. sapiens heidelbergensis''), sometimes called Heidelbergs, is an extinct species or subspecies of archaic human which existed during the Middle Pleistocene. It was subsumed as a subspecies of '' H. erectus'' i ...
''
* 350-150 kya: Estimated
origin of language
The origin of language (spoken and signed, as well as language-related technological systems such as writing), its relationship with human evolution, and its consequences have been subjects of study for centuries. Scholars wishing to study th ...
Middle Paleolithic
The dawn of ''Homo sapiens'' around 300 kya coincides with the start of the Middle Paleolithic period. Towards the middle of this 250,000-year period, humans begin to migrate out of Africa, and the later part of the period shows the beginning of long-distance trade, religious rites and other behavior associated with
Behavioral modernity
Behavioral modernity is a suite of behavioral and cognitive traits that distinguishes current '' Homo sapiens'' from other anatomically modern humans, hominins, and primates. Most scholars agree that modern human behavior can be characterize ...
.
* kya: The
trade
Trade involves the transfer of goods and services from one person or entity to another, often in exchange for money. Economists refer to a system or network that allows trade as a market.
An early form of trade, barter, saw the direct exc ...
and long-distance
transportation
Transport (in British English), or transportation (in American English), is the intentional movement of humans, animals, and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, land ( rail and road), water, cable, pipelin ...
of resources (e.g. obsidian), use of pigments, and possible making of projectile points in Kenya
* 279 kya: Early stone-tipped projectile weapons in Ethiopia
* c. 200 kya:
Glue
Adhesive, also known as glue, cement, mucilage, or paste, is any non-metallic substance applied to one or both surfaces of two separate items that binds them together and resists their separation.
The use of adhesives offers certain advant ...
in Central Italy by Neanderthals. More complicated compound adhesives developed by ''Homo sapiens'' have been found from c. 70 kya Sibudu, South Africa and have been regarded as a sign of cognitive advancement.
* 170-83 kya:
Clothing
Clothing (also known as clothes, apparel, and attire) are items worn on the body. Typically, clothing is made of fabrics or textiles, but over time it has included garments made from animal skin and other thin sheets of materials and natura ...
(among anatomically modern humans in Africa). Some other evidence suggests that humans may have begun wearing clothing as far back as 100,000 to 500,000 years ago.
* 164-47 kya: Heat treating of stone blades in South Africa.
* 135-100 kya:
Bead
A bead is a small, decorative object that is formed in a variety of shapes and sizes of a material such as stone, bone, shell, glass, plastic, wood, or pearl and with a small hole for threading or stringing. Beads range in size from under ...
paints
Paint is any pigmented liquid, liquefiable, or solid mastic composition that, after application to a substrate in a thin layer, converts to a solid film. It is most commonly used to protect, color, or provide texture. Paint can be made in many ...
made in South Africa
* 100 kya: Funerals (in the form of
burial
Burial, also known as interment or inhumation, is a method of final disposition whereby a dead body is placed into the ground, sometimes with objects. This is usually accomplished by excavating a pit or trench, placing the deceased and objec ...
Democratic Republic of the Congo
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially "La RDC" ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in ...
.
* 77 kya:
Beds
A bed is an item of furniture that is used as a place to sleep, rest, and relax.
Most modern beds consist of a soft, cushioned mattress on a bed frame. The mattress rests either on a solid base, often wood slats, or a sprung base. Many be ...
in South Africa
* 70-60 kya: Oldest
arrow
An arrow is a fin-stabilized projectile launched by a bow. A typical arrow usually consists of a long, stiff, straight shaft with a weighty (and usually sharp and pointed) arrowhead attached to the front end, multiple fin-like stabilizers ...
s (and evidence of bow-and-arrow technology), and oldest needle, at Sibudu, South Africa
Upper Paleolithic to Early Mesolithic
50 ka has been regarded by some as the beginning of
behavioral modernity
Behavioral modernity is a suite of behavioral and cognitive traits that distinguishes current '' Homo sapiens'' from other anatomically modern humans, hominins, and primates. Most scholars agree that modern human behavior can be characterize ...
, defining the Upper Paleolithic period, which lasted nearly 40,000 years (though some research dates the beginning of behavioral modernity earlier to the Middle Paleolithic). This is characterized by the widespread observation of religious rites, artistic expression and the appearance of tools made for purely intellectual or artistic pursuits.
* 49–30 ka:
Ground stone
In archaeology, ground stone is a category of stone tool formed by the grinding of a coarse-grained tool stone, either purposely or incidentally. Ground stone tools are usually made of basalt, rhyolite, granite, or other cryptocrystalline a ...
tools – fragments of an axe in Australia date to 49–45 ka, more appear in Japan closer to 30 ka, and elsewhere closer to the Neolithic.
* 47 ka: The oldest-known mines in the world are from Eswatini, and extracted hematite for the production of the red pigment
ochre
Ochre ( ; , ), or ocher in American English, is a natural clay earth pigment, a mixture of ferric oxide and varying amounts of clay and sand. It ranges in colour from yellow to deep orange or brown. It is also the name of the colours produced ...
.
* 45 ka:
Shoes
A shoe is an item of footwear intended to protect and comfort the human foot. They are often worn with a sock. Shoes are also used as an item of decoration and fashion. The design of shoes has varied enormously through time and from culture t ...
, as evidenced by changes in foot bone morphology in Eurasia. Bark
sandal
Sandals are an open type of footwear, consisting of a sole held to the wearer's foot by straps going over the instep and around the ankle. Sandals can also have a heel. While the distinction between sandals and other types of footwear can ...
s dated to 10 to 9 ka were found in
Fort Rock Cave
Fort Rock Cave was the site of the earliest evidence of human habitation in the US state of Oregon before the excavation of Paisley Caves. Fort Rock Cave featured numerous well-preserved sagebrush sandals, ranging from 9,000 to 13,000 years old ...
Oregon
Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...
in 1938. Oldest leather shoe (
Areni-1 shoe
The Areni-1 shoe is a 5,500-year-old leather shoe that was found in 2008 in excellent condition in the Areni-1 cave located in the Vayots Dzor province of Armenia. It is a one-piece leather-hide shoe, the oldest piece of leather footwear in the ...
Lebombo bone The Lebombo bone is a bone tool made of a baboon fibula with incised markings discovered in the Lebombo Mountains located between South Africa and Eswatini. Changes in the section of the notches indicate the use of different cutting edges, which the ...
) in
Eswatini
Eswatini ( ; ss, eSwatini ), officially the Kingdom of Eswatini and formerly named Swaziland ( ; officially renamed in 2018), is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. It is bordered by Mozambique to its northeast and South Africa to its no ...
* 43.7 ka:
Cave painting
In archaeology, Cave paintings are a type of parietal art (which category also includes petroglyphs, or engravings), found on the wall or ceilings of caves. The term usually implies prehistoric origin, and the oldest known are more than 40,000 ye ...
in
Indonesia
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Gui ...
* 37 ka:
Mortar and pestle
Mortar and pestle is a set of two simple tools used from the Stone Age to the present day to prepare ingredients or substances by crushing and grinding them into a fine paste or powder in the kitchen, laboratory, and pharmacy. The ''mortar'' ( ...
in
Southwest Asia
Western Asia, West Asia, or Southwest Asia, is the westernmost subregion of the larger geographical region of Asia, as defined by some academics, UN bodies and other institutions. It is almost entirely a part of the Middle East, and includes Ana ...
* 36 ka:
Weaving
Weaving is a method of textile production in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads are interlaced at right angles to form a fabric or cloth. Other methods are knitting, crocheting, felting, and braiding or plaiting. The longitudinal ...
– Indirect evidence from
Moravia
Moravia ( , also , ; cs, Morava ; german: link=yes, Mähren ; pl, Morawy ; szl, Morawa; la, Moravia) is a historical region in the east of the Czech Republic and one of three historical Czech lands, with Bohemia and Czech Silesia.
The ...
and
Georgia
Georgia most commonly refers to:
* Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States
Georgia may also refer to:
Places
Historical states and entities
* Related to the ...
. The earliest actual piece of woven cloth was found in Çatalhöyük, Turkey.
* 35 ka:
Flute
The flute is a family of classical music instrument in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, meaning they make sound by vibrating a column of air. However, unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is a reedles ...
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
and
Spain
, image_flag = Bandera de España.svg
, image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg
, national_motto = '' Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond")
, national_anthem = (English: "Royal March")
, ...
* 28 ka:
Rope
A rope is a group of yarns, plies, fibres, or strands that are twisted or braided together into a larger and stronger form. Ropes have tensile strength and so can be used for dragging and lifting. Rope is thicker and stronger than similarl ...
* 26 ka:
Ceramics
A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcelain ...
in Europe
* 23 ka:
Domestication of the dog
The domestication of the dog was the process which created the domestic dog. This included the dog's genetic divergence from the wolf, its domestication, and the emergence of the first dogs. Genetic studies show that all ancient and modern dogs s ...
in
Siberia
Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part ...
.
* 19 ka:
Bullroarer
The bullroarer, ''rhombus'', or ''turndun'', is an ancient ritual musical instrument and a device historically used for communicating over great distances. It consists of a piece of wood attached to a string, which when swung in a large circle ...
in
Ukraine
Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inva ...
* 16 ka:
Pottery
Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other ceramic materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. Major types include earthenware, stoneware and ...
in
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...
* 14.5 ka:
Bread
Bread is a staple food prepared from a dough of flour (usually wheat) and water, usually by baking. Throughout recorded history and around the world, it has been an important part of many cultures' diet. It is one of the oldest human-made f ...
Holocene
The Holocene ( ) is the current geological epoch. It began approximately 11,650 cal years Before Present (), after the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene togeth ...
around 11.7 ka coincide with the Agricultural Revolution, marking the beginning of the agricultural era, which persisted until the industrial revolution.
Neolithic and Late Mesolithic
During the Neolithic period, lasting 8400 years, stone remained the predominant material for toolmaking, although copper and arsenic bronze were developed towards the end of this period.
* 12-11 ka:
Agriculture
Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people ...
in the
Fertile Crescent
The Fertile Crescent ( ar, الهلال الخصيب) is a crescent-shaped region in the Middle East, spanning modern-day Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine and Jordan, together with the northern region of Kuwait, southeastern region of ...
* 12–11 ka:
Domestication
Domestication is a sustained multi-generational relationship in which humans assume a significant degree of control over the reproduction and care of another group of organisms to secure a more predictable supply of resources from that group. ...
of
sheep
Sheep or domestic sheep (''Ovis aries'') are domesticated, ruminant mammals typically kept as livestock. Although the term ''sheep'' can apply to other species in the genus '' Ovis'', in everyday usage it almost always refers to domesticate ...
in
Southwest Asia
Western Asia, West Asia, or Southwest Asia, is the westernmost subregion of the larger geographical region of Asia, as defined by some academics, UN bodies and other institutions. It is almost entirely a part of the Middle East, and includes Ana ...
(followed shortly by pigs, goats and cattle)
* 11-8 ka: Domestication of
rice
Rice is the seed of the grass species '' Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice) or less commonly ''Oryza glaberrima'' (African rice). The name wild rice is usually used for species of the genera '' Zizania'' and '' Porteresia'', both wild and domesticat ...
in
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...
Göbekli Tepe
Göbekli Tepe (, "Potbelly Hill"; known as ''Girê Mirazan'' or ''Xirabreşkê'' in Kurdish) is a Neolithic archaeological site in the Southeastern Anatolia Region of Turkey. Dated to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic, between 9500 and 8000 BCE, the ...
, in
Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula ...
* 9000 BC:
Mudbricks
A mudbrick or mud-brick is an air-dried brick, made of a mixture of loam, mud, sand and water mixed with a binding material such as rice husks or straw. Mudbricks are known from 9000 BCE, though since 4000 BCE, bricks have also been f ...
Jericho
Jericho ( ; ar, أريحا ; he, יְרִיחוֹ ) is a Palestinian city in the West Bank. It is located in the Jordan Valley, with the Jordan River to the east and Jerusalem to the west. It is the administrative seat of the Jericho ...
.
* 8000–7500 BC:
Proto-city
A proto-city is a large, dense Neolithic settlement that is largely distinguished from a city by its lack of planning and centralized rule. While the precise classification of many sites considered proto-cities is ambiguous and subject to consid ...
Çatalhöyük
Çatalhöyük (; also ''Çatal Höyük'' and ''Çatal Hüyük''; from Turkish ''çatal'' "fork" + ''höyük'' "tumulus") is a tell of a very large Neolithic and Chalcolithic proto-city settlement in southern Anatolia, which existed from app ...
mead
Mead () is an alcoholic beverage made by fermenting honey mixed with water, and sometimes with added ingredients such as fruits, spices, grains, or hops. The alcoholic content ranges from about 3.5% ABV to more than 20%. The defining characte ...
, in China
*7000 BC:
Sled dog
A sled dog is a dog trained and used to pull a land vehicle in harness, most commonly a sled over snow.
Sled dogs have been used in the Arctic for at least 8,000 years and, along with watercraft, were the only transportation in Arctic areas ...
and
Dog sled
A dog sled or dog sleigh is a sled pulled by one or more sled dogs used to travel over ice and through snow. Numerous types of sleds are used, depending on their function. They can be used for dog sled racing. Traditionally in Greenland and th ...
, in Siberia.
* 7000 BC:
Tanned leather
Tanning may refer to:
*Tanning (leather), treating animal skins to produce leather
*Sun tanning, using the sun to darken pale skin
**Indoor tanning, the use of artificial light in place of the sun
**Sunless tanning, application of a stain or dye t ...
in
Mehrgarh
Mehrgarh (; ur, ) is a Neolithic archaeological site (dated ) situated on the Kacchi Plain of Balochistan in Pakistan. It is located near the Bolan Pass, to the west of the Indus River and between the modern-day Pakistani cities of Quetta ...
, Pakistan.
* 6500 BC: Evidence of
lead smelting
Plants for the production of lead are generally referred to as lead smelters. Primary lead production begins with sintering. Concentrated lead ore is fed into a sintering machine with iron, silica, limestone fluxes, coke, soda ash, pyrite, zinc, ...
in
Çatalhöyük
Çatalhöyük (; also ''Çatal Höyük'' and ''Çatal Hüyük''; from Turkish ''çatal'' "fork" + ''höyük'' "tumulus") is a tell of a very large Neolithic and Chalcolithic proto-city settlement in southern Anatolia, which existed from app ...
,
Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula ...
* 6000 BC:
Kiln
A kiln is a thermally insulated chamber, a type of oven, that produces temperatures sufficient to complete some process, such as hardening, drying, or chemical changes. Kilns have been used for millennia to turn objects made from clay int ...
in
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the ...
(Iraq)
* 6th millennium BC:
Irrigation
Irrigation (also referred to as watering) is the practice of applying controlled amounts of water to land to help grow crops, landscape plants, and lawns. Irrigation has been a key aspect of agriculture for over 5,000 years and has been devel ...
in
Khuzistan
Khuzestan Province (also spelled Xuzestan; fa, استان خوزستان ''Ostān-e Xūzestān'') is one of the 31 provinces of Iran. It is in the southwest of the country, bordering Iraq and the Persian Gulf. Its capital is Ahvaz and it covers ...
,
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
* 6000-3200 BC:
Proto-writing
Proto-writing consists of visible marks communicating limited information. Such systems emerged from earlier traditions of symbol systems in the early Neolithic, as early as the 7th millennium BC in Eastern Europe and China. They used ideogra ...
in present day Egypt, Iraq, Serbia, China and Pakistan.
* c. 5500 BC:
Sailing
Sailing employs the wind—acting on sails, wingsails or kites—to propel a craft on the surface of the ''water'' (sailing ship, sailboat, raft, windsurfer, or kitesurfer), on ''ice'' (iceboat) or on ''land'' ( land yacht) over a chose ...
pottery depictions of sail boats, in
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the ...
, and later ancient EgyptThe sea-craft of prehistory, p76, by Paul Johnstone, Routledge, 1980
* 5000 BC:
Copper smelting
Smelting is a process of applying heat to ore, to extract a base metal. It is a form of extractive metallurgy. It is used to extract many metals from their ores, including silver, iron, copper, and other base metals. Smelting uses heat and a ch ...
in
Serbia
Serbia (, ; Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia ( Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin and the Balkans. It shares land borders with Hu ...
* 5000 BC:
Seawall
A seawall (or sea wall) is a form of coastal defense constructed where the sea, and associated coastal processes, impact directly upon the landforms of the coast. The purpose of a seawall is to protect areas of human habitation, conservation ...
in
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
* 5th millennium BC:
Lacquer
Lacquer is a type of hard and usually shiny coating or finish applied to materials such as wood or metal. It is most often made from resin extracted from trees and waxes and has been in use since antiquity.
Asian lacquerware, which may be c ...
in China
* 5000 BC:
Cotton
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus '' Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose, and can contain minor pe ...
thread, in
Mehrgarh
Mehrgarh (; ur, ) is a Neolithic archaeological site (dated ) situated on the Kacchi Plain of Balochistan in Pakistan. It is located near the Bolan Pass, to the west of the Indus River and between the modern-day Pakistani cities of Quetta ...
, Pakistan, connecting the copper beads of a bracelet.
* 5000–4500 BC: Rowing oars in China
* 4500–3500 BC:
Lost-wax casting
Lost-wax casting (also called "investment casting", "precision casting", or ''cire perdue'' which has been adopted into English from the French, ) is the process by which a duplicate metal sculpture (often silver, gold, brass, or bronze) is ...
in
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
. In or the
Indus Valley
The Indus ( ) is a transboundary river of Asia and a trans-Himalayan river of South and Central Asia. The river rises in mountain springs northeast of Mount Kailash in Western Tibet, flows northwest through the disputed region of Kashmir, ...
* 4400 BC: Fired bricks in China.
* 4000 BC: Probable time period of the first diamond-mines in the world, in Southern India.
* Around 4000 BC: Paved roads, in and around the Mesopotamian city of Ur, Iraq.
* 4000 BC:
Plumbing
Plumbing is any system that conveys fluids for a wide range of applications. Plumbing uses pipes, valves, plumbing fixtures, tanks, and other apparatuses to convey fluids. Heating and cooling (HVAC), waste removal, and potable water delive ...
. The earliest pipes were made of clay, and are found at the Temple of Bel at Nippur in Babylonia.
* 4000–3500 BC:
Wheel
A wheel is a circular component that is intended to rotate on an axle bearing. The wheel is one of the key components of the wheel and axle which is one of the six simple machines. Wheels, in conjunction with axles, allow heavy objects to be ...
:
potter's wheel
In pottery, a potter's wheel is a machine used in the shaping (known as throwing) of clay into round ceramic ware. The wheel may also be used during the process of trimming excess clay from leather-hard dried ware that is stiff but malleable, ...
s in
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the ...
and wheeled vehicles in Mesopotamia (Sumerian civilization), the Northern
Caucasus
The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mainly comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and parts of Southern Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus range, have historica ...
(
Maykop culture
The Maykop culture (, , scientific transliteration: ''Majkop,''), c. 3700 BC– 3000 BC, was a major Bronze Age archaeological culture in the western Caucasus region.
It extends along the area from the Taman Peninsula at the Kerch Strait to ...
) and
Central Europe
Central Europe is an area of Europe between Western Europe and Eastern Europe, based on a common historical, social and cultural identity. The Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) between Catholicism and Protestantism significantly shaped the a ...
(
Cucuteni–Trypillia culture
The Cucuteni–Trypillia culture, also known as the Tripolye culture, is a Neolithic–Chalcolithic archaeological culture ( 5500 to 2750 BCE) of Eastern Europe.
It extended from the Carpathian Mountains to the Dniester and Dnieper regions, cent ...
).
* 3630 BC: Silk garments (
sericulture
Sericulture, or silk farming, is the cultivation of silkworms to produce silk. Although there are several commercial species of silkworms, '' Bombyx mori'' (the caterpillar of the domestic silkmoth) is the most widely used and intensively stud ...
) in China
* 3500 BC: Probable first
domestication of the horse
A number of hypotheses exist on many of the key issues regarding the domestication of the horse. Although horses appeared in Paleolithic cave art as early as 30,000 BCE, these were wild horses and were probably hunted for meat.
How and when ho ...
in the Eurasian Steppes.
* 3500 BC: Wine as
general anesthesia
General anaesthesia (UK) or general anesthesia (US) is a medically induced loss of consciousness that renders the patient unarousable even with painful stimuli. This effect is achieved by administering either intravenous or inhalational general ...
in Sumer.
* 3500 BC:
Seal (emblem)
A seal is a device for making an impression in wax, clay, paper, or some other medium, including an embossment on paper, and is also the impression thus made. The original purpose was to authenticate a document, or to prevent interference with ...
invented around in the
Near East
The ''Near East''; he, המזרח הקרוב; arc, ܕܢܚܐ ܩܪܒ; fa, خاور نزدیک, Xāvar-e nazdik; tr, Yakın Doğu is a geographical term which roughly encompasses a transcontinental region in Western Asia, that was once the hist ...
, at the contemporary sites of
Uruk
Uruk, also known as Warka or Warkah, was an ancient city of Sumer (and later of Babylonia) situated east of the present bed of the Euphrates River on the dried-up ancient channel of the Euphrates east of modern Samawah, Muthanna Governorate, Al ...
in southern
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the ...
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
during the
Proto-Elamite
The Proto-Elamite period, also known as Susa III, is a chronological era in the ancient history of the area of Elam, dating from . In archaeological terms this corresponds to the late Banesh period. Proto-Elamite sites are recognized as the old ...
period, and they follow the development of
stamp seal
__NOTOC__
The stamp seal is a carved object, usually stone, first made in the 4th millennium BC, and probably earlier. They were used to impress their picture or inscription into soft, prepared clay.
Seal devices have seldom survived through ti ...
s in the
Halaf culture
The Halaf culture is a prehistoric period which lasted between about 6100 BC and 5100 BC. The period is a continuous development out of the earlier Pottery Neolithic and is located primarily in the fertile valley of the Khabur River (Nahr al-K ...
or slightly earlier.
* 3400-3100 BC:
Tattoo
A tattoo is a form of body modification made by inserting tattoo ink, dyes, and/or pigments, either indelible or temporary, into the dermis layer of the skin to form a design. Tattoo artists create these designs using several tattooing ...
s in southern Europe
Bronze Age
The beginning of bronze-smelting coincides with the emergence of the first cities and of writing in the Ancient Near East and the Indus Valley. The
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...
starting in Eurasia in the 4th millennia BC and ended, in Eurasia, c.1300 BC.
* c. 4650 BC: Copper-tin bronze found at the Pločnik (
Serbia
Serbia (, ; Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia ( Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin and the Balkans. It shares land borders with Hu ...
) site, and belonging to the
Vinča culture
The Vinča culture (), also known as Turdaș culture or Turdaș–Vinča culture, is a Neolithic archaeological culture of Southeast Europe, dated to the period 5700–4500 BC or 5300–4700/4500 BC.. Named for its type site, Vinča-Belo Brdo, ...
, believed to be produced from smelting a natural tin baring copper ore, Stannite.
* bef. 3500 BC:
ploughing
A plough or plow ( US; both ) is a farm tool for loosening or turning the soil before sowing seed or planting. Ploughs were traditionally drawn by oxen and horses, but in modern farms are drawn by tractors. A plough may have a wooden, iron or ...
, on a site in
Bubeneč
Bubeneč is a district in the north-west of Prague. 52% of the district is in Prague 7, but most of the built-up area is in Prague 6. Sparta Prague football club and their stadium Generali Arena is situated at the south-eastern edge of Bubeneč, ...
, Czech Republic. Evidence, c. 2800 BC, has also been found at
Kalibangan
Kalibangān is a town located at on the left or southern banks of the Ghaggar (Ghaggar-Hakra River) in Tehsil Pilibangān, between Suratgarh and Hanumangarh in Hanumangarh District, Rajasthan, India 205 km. from Bikaner. It is also ident ...
, Indus Valley (modern-day India).B. B. Lal, ''India 1947–1997: New Light on the Indus Civilization''
* c. 3300 BC:
City
A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...
in
Uruk
Uruk, also known as Warka or Warkah, was an ancient city of Sumer (and later of Babylonia) situated east of the present bed of the Euphrates River on the dried-up ancient channel of the Euphrates east of modern Samawah, Muthanna Governorate, Al ...
,
Sumer
Sumer () is the earliest known civilization in the historical region of southern Mesopotamia (south-central Iraq), emerging during the Chalcolithic and early Bronze Ages between the sixth and fifth millennium BC. It is one of the cradles of ...
,
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the ...
(modern-day Iraq).
* c. 3300 BC:
Writing
Writing is a medium of human communication which involves the representation of a language through a system of physically inscribed, mechanically transferred, or digitally represented symbols.
Writing systems do not themselves constitute h ...
–
Cuneiform
Cuneiform is a logo- syllabic script that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Middle East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. It is named for the characteristic wedge- ...
in
Sumer
Sumer () is the earliest known civilization in the historical region of southern Mesopotamia (south-central Iraq), emerging during the Chalcolithic and early Bronze Ages between the sixth and fifth millennium BC. It is one of the cradles of ...
.
* bef. 3200 BC: dry
Latrine
A latrine is a toilet or an even simpler facility that is used as a toilet within a sanitation system. For example, it can be a communal trench in the earth in a camp to be used as emergency sanitation, a hole in the ground ( pit latrine), or ...
s in the city of
Uruk
Uruk, also known as Warka or Warkah, was an ancient city of Sumer (and later of Babylonia) situated east of the present bed of the Euphrates River on the dried-up ancient channel of the Euphrates east of modern Samawah, Muthanna Governorate, Al ...
, Iraq, with later dry squat
Toilet
A toilet is a piece of sanitary hardware that collects human urine and feces, and sometimes toilet paper, usually for disposal. Flush toilets use water, while dry or non-flush toilets do not. They can be designed for a sitting position popu ...
s, that added raised fired brick foot platforms, and pedestal toilets, all over clay pipe constructed drains.
* bef. 3000 BC: Devices functionally equivalent to
dice
Dice (singular die or dice) are small, throwable objects with marked sides that can rest in multiple positions. They are used for generating random values, commonly as part of tabletop games, including dice games, board games, role-playing ...
, in the form of flat two-sided throwsticks, are seen in the Egyptian game of
Senet
Senet or senat ( egy, znt, translation=passing; cf. Coptic ⲥⲓⲛⲉ /sinə/ "passing, afternoon") is a board game from ancient Egypt. The earliest representation of senet is dated to E from the Mastaba of Hesy-Re, while similar boards and ...
. Perhaps the oldest known dice, resembling modern ones, were excavated as part of a
backgammon
Backgammon is a two-player board game played with counters and dice on tables boards. It is the most widespread Western member of the large family of tables games, whose ancestors date back nearly 5,000 years to the regions of Mesopotamia and Pe ...
-like game set at the
Burnt City
Shahr-e Sukhteh ( fa, شهر سوخته, meaning " heBurnt City"), c. 3200–2350 BCE,
also spelled as ''Shahr-e Sūkhté'' and ''Shahr-i Sōkhta'', is an archaeological site of a sizable Bronze Age urban settlement, associated with the Helmand ...
, an archeological site in south-eastern
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
, estimated to be from between 2800 and 2500 BC. Later, terracotta dice were used at the Indus Valley site of
Mohenjo-daro
Mohenjo-daro (; sd, موئن جو دڙو'', ''meaning 'Mound of the Dead Men';Tin extraction in
Central Asia
Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes the fo ...
* 3000 - 2560 BC:
Papyrus
Papyrus ( ) is a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, '' Cyperus papyrus'', a wetland sedge. ''Papyrus'' (plural: ''papyri'') can also refer to ...
in Egypt
* c. 3000 BC:
Reservoir
A reservoir (; from French ''réservoir'' ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam. Such a dam may be either artificial, built to store fresh water or it may be a natural formation.
Reservoirs can be created in a number of ways, including contr ...
in
Girnar
Girnar is an ancient hill in Junagadh, Gujarat, India.
Geology
Mount Girnar is a major igneous plutonic complex which intruded into the basalts towards the close of the Deccan Trap period. The rock types identified in this complex are ga ...
Receipt
A receipt (also known as a packing list, packing slip, packaging slip, (delivery) docket, shipping list, delivery list, bill of the parcel, manifest, or customer receipt) is a document acknowledging that a person has received money or proper ...
in Ancient
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the ...
(
Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...
)
* c. 2600 BC:
Planned city
A planned community, planned city, planned town, or planned settlement is any community that was carefully planned from its inception and is typically constructed on previously undeveloped land. This contrasts with settlements that evolve ...
in Indus Valley (modern-day: India, Pakistan).Davreu, Robert (1978). "Cities of Mystery: The Lost Empire of the Indus Valley". ''The World's Last Mysteries''. (second edition). Sydney: Reader's Digest. pp. 121-129. .Kipfer, Barbara Ann (2000). ''Encyclopedic Dictionary of Archaeology''. (Illustrated edition). New York: Springer. p. 229. .
* By 2650 BC: The
Ruler
A ruler, sometimes called a rule, line gauge, or scale, is a device used in geometry and technical drawing, as well as the engineering and construction industries, to measure distances or draw straight lines.
Variants
Rulers have long ...
, or
Measuring rod
A measuring rod is a tool used to physically measure lengths and survey areas of various sizes. Most measuring rods are round or square sectioned; however, they can also be flat boards. Some have markings at regular intervals. It is likely th ...
, in the subdivided
Nippur
Nippur ( Sumerian: ''Nibru'', often logographically recorded as , EN.LÍLKI, "Enlil City;"The Cambridge Ancient History: Prolegomena & Prehistory': Vol. 1, Part 1. Accessed 15 Dec 2010. Akkadian: ''Nibbur'') was an ancient Sumerian city. It was ...
Mohenjo-daro
Mohenjo-daro (; sd, موئن جو دڙو'', ''meaning 'Mound of the Dead Men';Rakhigarhi
Rakhigarhi or Rakhi Garhi is a village and an archaeological site belonging to the Indus Valley civilisation in Hisar District of the northern Indian state of Haryana, situated about 150 km northwest of Delhi. It was part of the mature ...
(modern-day: India, Pakistan).
* c. 2600 BC:
Public bath
Public baths originated when most people in population centers did not have access to private bathing facilities. Though termed "public", they have often been restricted according to gender, religious affiliation, personal membership, and other cr ...
in
Mohenjo-daro
Mohenjo-daro (; sd, موئن جو دڙو'', ''meaning 'Mound of the Dead Men';Pakistan
Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...
).
* c. 2600 BC:
Levee
A levee (), dike (American English), dyke (Commonwealth English), embankment, floodbank, or stop bank is a structure that is usually earthen and that often runs parallel to the course of a river in its floodplain or along low-lying coastli ...
in Indus Valley.
* by 2556 BC: Docks A harbor structure has been excavated in
Wadi al-Jarf
Wadi al-Jarf ( ar, وادي الجرف) is the present name for an area on the Red Sea coast of Egypt, south of Suez, that is the site of the oldest known artificial harbour in the world, developed about 4500 years ago. It is located at the mout ...
, Egypt, which was developed by the reign of the Pharaoh
Khufu
Khufu or Cheops was an ancient Egyptian monarch who was the second pharaoh of the Fourth Dynasty, in the first half of the Old Kingdom period ( 26th century BC). Khufu succeeded his father Sneferu as king. He is generally accepted as having c ...
(2589–2566 B.C).
* 3000 - 2500 BC:
Rhinoplasty
Rhinoplasty ( grc, ῥίς, rhī́s, nose + grc, πλάσσειν, plássein, to shape), commonly called nose job, medically called nasal reconstruction is a plastic surgery procedure for altering and reconstructing the nose. There are two typ ...
Fourth Dynasty of Egypt
The Fourth Dynasty of ancient Egypt (notated Dynasty IV) is characterized as a "golden age" of the Old Kingdom of Egypt. Dynasty IV lasted from to 2494 BC. It was a time of peace and prosperity as well as one during which trade with other c ...
; examples of Deben (unit) balance weights, from reign of
Sneferu
Sneferu ( snfr-wj "He has perfected me", from ''Ḥr-nb-mꜣꜥt-snfr-wj'' "Horus, Lord of Maat, has perfected me", also read Snefru or Snofru), well known under his Hellenized name Soris ( grc-koi, Σῶρις by Manetho), was the founding phar ...
(c. 2600 BC) have been attributed.
* 2500 BC:
Puppetry
Puppetry is a form of theatre or performance that involves the manipulation of puppets – inanimate objects, often resembling some type of human or animal figure, that are animated or manipulated by a human called a puppeteer. Such a performa ...
in the Indus Valley.
* c. 2400 BC: Copper pipes, the
Pyramid of Sahure
The pyramid of Sahure () is a pyramid complex built in the late 26th to 25th century BC for the Egyptian pharaoh Sahure of the Fifth Dynasty. It introduced a period of pyramid building by Sahure's successors in Abusir, on a location earlier us ...
, an adjoining temple complex at
Abusir
Abusir ( ar, ابو صير ; Egyptian ''pr wsjr'' cop, ⲃⲟⲩⲥⲓⲣⲓ ' "the House or Temple of Osiris"; grc, Βούσιρις) is the name given to an Egyptian archaeological locality – specifically, an extensive necropolis ...
, was discovered to have a network of copper drainage pipes.
* aft. 2400 BC:
Touchstone
Touchstone may refer to:
* Touchstone (assaying tool), a stone used to identify precious metals
* Touchstone (metaphor), a means of assaying relative merits of a concept
Entertainment
* ''Touchstone'' (album), a 1982 album by Chick Corea
* T ...
in the Indus Valley site of
Banawali
Banawali (Devanagari: बनावली) is an archaeological site belonging to Indus Valley civilization period in fatehabad district, Haryana, India and is located about 120 km northeast of Kalibangan and 16 km from Fatehabad. Ban ...
(modern-day India).
* 2300 BC:
Dictionary
A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged alphabetically (or by radical and stroke for ideographic languages), which may include information on definitions, usage, etymologie ...
in
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the ...
.
* c. 2200 BC:
Protractor
A protractor is a measuring instrument, typically made of transparent plastic or glass, for measuring angles.
Some protractors are simple half-discs or full circles. More advanced protractors, such as the bevel protractor, have one or two sw ...
, Phase IV,
Lothal
Lothal () was one of the southernmost sites of the ancient Indus Valley civilisation, located in the Bhāl region of the modern state of Gujarāt. Construction of the city is believed to have begun around 2200 BCE.
Archaeological Survey of ...
, Indus Valley (modern-day India), a Xancus shell cylindar with sawn groves, at right angles, in its top and bottom surfaces, has been proposed as an angle marking tool.
* c. 2000 BC:
Water clock
A water clock or clepsydra (; ; ) is a timepiece by which time is measured by the regulated flow of liquid into (inflow type) or out from (outflow type) a vessel, and where the amount is then measured.
Water clocks are one of the oldest time- ...
by at least the old Babylonian period (c. 2000 – c. 1600 BC), but possibly earlier from Mohenjo-Daro in the Indus Valley.
* c. 2000 BC:
Musical notation
Music notation or musical notation is any system used to visually represent aurally perceived music played with instruments or sung by the human voice through the use of written, printed, or otherwise-produced symbols, including notation f ...
in
Sumer
Sumer () is the earliest known civilization in the historical region of southern Mesopotamia (south-central Iraq), emerging during the Chalcolithic and early Bronze Ages between the sixth and fifth millennium BC. It is one of the cradles of ...
* c. 2000 BC:
Chariot
A chariot is a type of cart driven by a charioteer, usually using horses to provide rapid motive power. The oldest known chariots have been found in burials of the Sintashta culture in modern-day Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia, dated to c. 2000&n ...
in
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...
and
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...
* c. 2000 BC:
Fountain
A fountain, from the Latin "fons" (genitive "fontis"), meaning source or spring, is a decorative reservoir used for discharging water. It is also a structure that jets water into the air for a decorative or dramatic effect.
Fountains were ori ...
in
Lagash
Lagash (cuneiform: LAGAŠKI; Sumerian: ''Lagaš''), was an ancient city state located northwest of the junction of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers and east of Uruk, about east of the modern town of Ash Shatrah, Iraq. Lagash (modern Al-Hiba) w ...
,
Sumer
Sumer () is the earliest known civilization in the historical region of southern Mesopotamia (south-central Iraq), emerging during the Chalcolithic and early Bronze Ages between the sixth and fifth millennium BC. It is one of the cradles of ...
* bef. 2000 BC:
Scissors
Scissors are hand-operated shearing tools. A pair of scissors consists of a pair of metal blades pivoted so that the sharpened edges slide against each other when the handles (bows) opposite to the pivot are closed. Scissors are used for cutt ...
, in
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the ...
.
* c. 1850 BC: Proto-alphabet (
Proto-Sinaitic script
Proto-Sinaitic (also referred to as Sinaitic, Proto-Canaanite when found in Canaan, the North Semitic alphabet, or Early Alphabetic) is considered the earliest trace of alphabetic writing and the common ancestor of both the Ancient South Arabian ...
) in Egypt.
* by 1500 BC:
Sundial
A sundial is a horological device that tells the time of day (referred to as civil time in modern usage) when direct sunlight shines by the apparent position of the Sun in the sky. In the narrowest sense of the word, it consists of a f ...
Babylonia
Babylonia (; Akkadian: , ''māt Akkadī'') was an ancient Akkadian-speaking state and cultural area based in the city of Babylon in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq and parts of Syria). It emerged as an Amorite-ruled state c ...
(modern-day Iraq).
* c. 1500 BC:
Glass
Glass is a non- crystalline, often transparent, amorphous solid that has widespread practical, technological, and decorative use in, for example, window panes, tableware, and optics. Glass is most often formed by rapid cooling (quenchin ...
manufacture in either
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the ...
Seed drill
A seed drill is a device used in agriculture that sows seeds for crops by positioning them in the soil and burying them to a specific depth while being dragged by a tractor. This ensures that seeds will be distributed evenly.
The seed drill sow ...
in
Babylonia
Babylonia (; Akkadian: , ''māt Akkadī'') was an ancient Akkadian-speaking state and cultural area based in the city of Babylon in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq and parts of Syria). It emerged as an Amorite-ruled state c ...
History Channel, ''Where Did It Come From?'' Episode: "Ancient China: Agriculture"
* bef. 1400 BC:
Rubber
Rubber, also called India rubber, latex, Amazonian rubber, ''caucho'', or ''caoutchouc'', as initially produced, consists of polymers of the organic compound isoprene, with minor impurities of other organic compounds. Thailand, Malaysia, and ...
,
Mesoamerican ballgame
The Mesoamerican ballgame ( nah, ōllamalīztli, , myn, pitz) was a sport with ritual associations played since at least 1650 BC by the pre-Columbian people of Ancient Mesoamerica. The sport had different versions in different places during ...
.
* c. 1300 BC:
Lathe
A lathe () is a machine tool that rotates a workpiece about an axis of rotation to perform various operations such as cutting, sanding, knurling, drilling, deformation, facing, and turning, with tools that are applied to the workpiece ...
in Ancient Egypt
* 1400 - 1200 BC:
Concrete
Concrete is a composite material composed of fine and coarse aggregate bonded together with a fluid cement (cement paste) that hardens (cures) over time. Concrete is the second-most-used substance in the world after water, and is the most wid ...
in
Tiryns
Tiryns or (Ancient Greek: Τίρυνς; Modern Greek: Τίρυνθα) is a Mycenaean archaeological site in Argolis in the Peloponnese, and the location from which the mythical hero Heracles performed his Twelve Labours. It lies south of M ...
(Mycenaean Greece). Waterproof concrete was later developed by the Assyrians in 688 BC, and the Romans developed concretes that could set underwater.Lechtman and Hobbs "Roman Concrete and the Roman Architectural Revolution" The Romans later used concrete extensively for construction from 300 BC to 476 AD.
Iron Age
The
Late Bronze Age collapse
The Late Bronze Age collapse was a time of widespread societal collapse during the 12th century BC, between c. 1200 and 1150. The collapse affected a large area of the Eastern Mediterranean (North Africa and Southeast Europe) and the Near ...
occurs around 1300-1175 BC, extinguishing most Bronze-Age Near Eastern cultures, and significantly weakening the rest. This is coincident with the complete collapse of the
Indus Valley civilisation
The Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC), also known as the Indus Civilisation was a Bronze Age civilisation in the northwestern regions of South Asia, lasting from 3300 BCE to 1300 BCE, and in its mature form 2600 BCE to 1900& ...
. This event is followed by the beginning of the Iron Age. We define the Iron Age as ending in 510 BC for the purposes of this article, even though the typical definition is region-dependent (e.g. 510 BC in Greece, 322 BC in India, 200 BC in China), thus being an 800-year period.
* 1300 BC:
Iron smelting
Smelting is a process of applying heat to ore, to extract a base metal. It is a form of extractive metallurgy. It is used to extract many metals from their ores, including silver, iron, copper, and other base metals. Smelting uses heat and a c ...
in the
Hittite Empire
The Hittites () were an Anatolian people who played an important role in establishing first a kingdom in Kussara (before 1750 BC), then the Kanesh or Nesha kingdom (c. 1750–1650 BC), and next an empire centered on Hattusa in north-centr ...
of the
Middle East
The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabian Peninsula, Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Anatolia, Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Pro ...
.Early Antiquity By I.M. Drakonoff. 1991.
University of Chicago Press
The University of Chicago Press is the largest and one of the oldest university presses in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including '' The Chicago Manual of Style' ...
. . p. 372
* 1200 BC:
Distillation
Distillation, or classical distillation, is the process of separating the components or substances from a liquid mixture by using selective boiling and condensation, usually inside an apparatus known as a still. Dry distillation is the he ...
is described on
Akkadian Akkadian or Accadian may refer to:
* Akkadians, inhabitants of the Akkadian Empire
* Akkadian language, an extinct Eastern Semitic language
* Akkadian literature, literature in this language
* Akkadian cuneiform
Cuneiform is a logo-syllabic ...
Saddle
The saddle is a supportive structure for a rider of an animal, fastened to an animal's back by a girth. The most common type is equestrian. However, specialized saddles have been created for oxen, camels and other animals. It is not kno ...
(fringed cloths or pads used by
Assyrian cavalry
The Neo-Assyrian Empire arose in the 10th century BC. Ashurnasirpal II is credited for utilizing sound strategy in his wars of conquest. While aiming to secure defensible frontiers, he would launch raids further inland against his opponents as a ...
Crossbow
A crossbow is a ranged weapon using an Elasticity (physics), elastic launching device consisting of a Bow and arrow, bow-like assembly called a ''prod'', mounted horizontally on a main frame called a ''tiller'', which is hand-held in a similar ...
in
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...
.
* 600 BC:
Coins
A coin is a small, flat (usually depending on the country or value), round piece of metal or plastic used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in large quantities at a mint in order t ...
in
Phoenicia
Phoenicia () was an ancient thalassocratic civilization originating in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily located in modern Lebanon. The territory of the Phoenician city-states extended and shrank throughout their his ...
(Modern Lebanon) or
Lydia
Lydia ( Lydian: 𐤮𐤱𐤠𐤭𐤣𐤠, ''Śfarda''; Aramaic: ''Lydia''; el, Λυδία, ''Lȳdíā''; tr, Lidya) was an Iron Age kingdom of western Asia Minor located generally east of ancient Ionia in the modern western Turkish pro ...
* Late 7th or early 6th century BC:
Wagonway
Wagonways (also spelt Waggonways), also known as horse-drawn railways and horse-drawn railroad consisted of the horses, equipment and tracks used for hauling wagons, which preceded steam-powered railways. The terms plateway, tramway, dramw ...
called
Diolkos
The Diolkos (, from the Greek , "across", and , "portage machine") was a paved trackway near Corinth in Ancient Greece which enabled boats to be moved overland across the Isthmus of Corinth. The shortcut allowed ancient vessels to avoid t ...
across the
Isthmus of Corinth
The Isthmus of Corinth ( Greek: Ισθμός της Κορίνθου) is the narrow land bridge which connects the Peloponnese peninsula with the rest of the mainland of Greece, near the city of Corinth. The word " isthmus" comes from the Anci ...
in
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity ( AD 600), that comprised a loose collection of cu ...
Wootz steel
Wootz steel, also known as Seric steel, is a crucible steel characterized by a pattern of bands and high carbon content. These bands are formed by sheets of microscopic carbides within a tempered martensite or pearlite matrix in higher carbon ...
, of
South India
South India, also known as Dakshina Bharata or Peninsular India, consists of the peninsular southern part of India. It encompasses the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana, as well as the union terr ...
.Davidson, Hilda Ellis (1998). ''The Sword in Anglo-Saxon England: Its Archaeology and Literature''. Boydell & Brewer Ltd. p. 20. .
* 6th century BC:
University
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United Stat ...
in
Taxila
Taxila or Takshashila (; sa, तक्षशिला; pi, ; , ; , ) is a city in Punjab, Pakistan. Located in the Taxila Tehsil of Rawalpindi District, it lies approximately northwest of the Islamabad–Rawalpindi metropolitan area a ...
, of the Indus Valley, then part of the kingdom of
Gandhara
Gandhāra is the name of an ancient region located in the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent, more precisely in present-day north-west Pakistan and parts of south-east Afghanistan. The region centered around the Peshawar Val ...
, of the
Achaemenid Empire
The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Based in Western Asia, it was contemporarily the largest em ...
(modern-day Pakistan).
* 6th century to 2nd centuries BC: Systematization of medicine and surgery in the
Sushruta Samhita
The ''Sushruta Samhita'' (सुश्रुतसंहिता, IAST: ''Suśrutasaṃhitā'', literally "Suśruta's Compendium") is an ancient Sanskrit text on medicine and surgery, and one of the most important such treatises on this subje ...
in Vedic Northern India.Hoernle, A. F. Rudolf (1907). ''Studies in the Medicine of Ancient India: Osteology or the Bones of the Human Body''. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press.Meulenbeld, Gerrit Jan (1999). ''A History of Indian Medical Literature''. Groningen: Brill (all volumes, 1999-2002). . Documented procedures to:
** Perform
cataract surgery
Cataract surgery, also called lens replacement surgery, is the removal of the natural lens of the eye (also called "crystalline lens") that has developed an opacification, which is referred to as a cataract, and its replacement with an intra ...
(
couching
In embroidery, couching and laid work are techniques in which yarn or other materials are laid across the surface of the ground fabric and fastened in place with small stitches of the same or a different yarn.
The couching threads may be eith ...
). Babylonian and Egyptian texts, a millennia before, depict and mention oculists, but not the procedure itself.
** Perform
Caesarean section
Caesarean section, also known as C-section or caesarean delivery, is the surgical procedure by which one or more babies are delivered through an incision in the mother's abdomen, often performed because vaginal delivery would put the baby or m ...
.
** Construct
Prosthetic limb
In medicine, a prosthesis (plural: prostheses; from grc, πρόσθεσις, prósthesis, addition, application, attachment), or a prosthetic implant, is an artificial device that replaces a missing body part, which may be lost through trau ...
s.
** Perform
Plastic surgery
Plastic surgery is a surgical specialty involving the restoration, reconstruction or alteration of the human body. It can be divided into two main categories: reconstructive surgery and cosmetic surgery. Reconstructive surgery includes cranio ...
, though reconstructive nasal surgery is described in millennia older
Egyptian papyri
Egyptian describes something of, from, or related to Egypt.
Egyptian or Egyptians may refer to:
Nations and ethnic groups
* Egyptians, a national group in North Africa
** Egyptian culture, a complex and stable culture with thousands of years of ...
Carthage
Carthage was the capital city of Ancient Carthage, on the eastern side of the Lake of Tunis in what is now Tunisia. Carthage was one of the most important trading hubs of the Ancient Mediterranean and one of the most affluent cities of the classi ...
Spain
, image_flag = Bandera de España.svg
, image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg
, national_motto = '' Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond")
, national_anthem = (English: "Royal March")
, ...
Frankel, Rafael (2003): "The Olynthus Mill, Its Origin, and Diffusion: Typology and Distribution", ''
American Journal of Archaeology
The ''American Journal of Archaeology'' (AJA), the peer-reviewed journal of the Archaeological Institute of America, has been published since 1897 (continuing the ''American Journal of Archaeology and of the History of the Fine Arts'' founded by ...
'', Vol. 107, No. 1, pp. 1–21 (17–19) Later during the Roman empire, a mechanism appeared that incorporated a connecting rod.
* Before 5th century BC: Loan deeds in Upanishadic India.
* c. 515 BC: Crane in
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity ( AD 600), that comprised a loose collection of cu ...
* 500 BC
Lighthouse
A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid, for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways.
Lighthouses m ...
in Greece
Classical antiquity and medieval era
5th century BC
* 500 to 200 BC: Toe stirrup, depicted in 2nd century Buddhist art, of the Sanchi and Bhaja Caves, of the Deccan
Satavahana empire
The Satavahanas (''Sādavāhana'' or ''Sātavāhana'', IAST: ), also referred to as the Andhras in the Puranas, were an ancient Indian dynasty based in the Deccan region. Most modern scholars believe that the Satavahana rule began in the late ...
(modern day India) although may have originated as early as 500 BC.
* 485 BC:Jain, Kailash Chand (1991), ''Lord Mahāvīra and His Times'', Motilal Banarsidass,
Catapult
A catapult is a ballistic device used to launch a projectile a great distance without the aid of gunpowder or other propellants – particularly various types of ancient and medieval siege engines. A catapult uses the sudden release of stor ...
by
Ajatashatru
Ajatasattu (Pāli ) or Ajatashatru (Sanskrit ) in Buddhist tradition, or Kunika () and Kuniya () in the Jain histories, (c. 492 to 460 BCE or early 5th century BCE) was one of the most important kings of the Haryanka dynasty of Magadha in East ...
in
Magadha
Magadha was a region and one of the sixteen sa, script=Latn, Mahajanapadas, label=none, lit=Great Kingdoms of the Second Urbanization (600–200 BCE) in what is now south Bihar (before expansion) at the eastern Ganges Plain. Magadha was rul ...
,
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...
.Singh, Upinder (2016), ''A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India: From the Stone Age to the 12th Century'', Pearson PLC,
* 485 BC: Scythed chariot by
Ajatashatru
Ajatasattu (Pāli ) or Ajatashatru (Sanskrit ) in Buddhist tradition, or Kunika () and Kuniya () in the Jain histories, (c. 492 to 460 BCE or early 5th century BCE) was one of the most important kings of the Haryanka dynasty of Magadha in East ...
in
Magadha
Magadha was a region and one of the sixteen sa, script=Latn, Mahajanapadas, label=none, lit=Great Kingdoms of the Second Urbanization (600–200 BCE) in what is now south Bihar (before expansion) at the eastern Ganges Plain. Magadha was rul ...
,
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...
.
* 5th century BC:
Cast iron
Cast iron is a class of iron– carbon alloys with a carbon content more than 2%. Its usefulness derives from its relatively low melting temperature. The alloy constituents affect its color when fractured: white cast iron has carbide impuri ...
in
Ancient China
The earliest known written records of the history of China date from as early as 1250 BC, from the Shang dynasty (c. 1600–1046 BC), during the reign of king Wu Ding. Ancient historical texts such as the '' Book of Documents'' (early chapt ...
: Confirmed by archaeological evidence, the earliest cast iron is developed in China by the early 5th century BC during the Zhou Dynasty (1122–256 BC), the oldest specimens found in a tomb of Luhe County in
Jiangsu
Jiangsu (; ; pinyin: Jiāngsū, alternatively romanized as Kiangsu or Chiangsu) is an eastern coastal province of the People's Republic of China. It is one of the leading provinces in finance, education, technology, and tourism, with it ...
province.Wagner (2001), 7, 36–37, 64–68. 335.Pigott (1999), 177.
* c. 480 BC: Spiral stairs (Temple A) in Selinunte,
List of ancient spiral stairs
The list of ancient spiral stairs contains a selection of Greco-Roman spiral stairs constructed during classical antiquity. The spiral stair is a type of stairway which, due to its complex helical structure, has been introduced relatively late i ...
)
* By 407 BC:
Wheelbarrow
A wheelbarrow is a small hand-propelled vehicle, usually with just one wheel, designed to be pushed and guided by a single person using two handles at the rear, or by a sail to push the ancient wheelbarrow by wind. The term "wheelbarrow" is ma ...
in Greece.
*By 400 BC:
Camera obscura
A camera obscura (; ) is a darkened room with a small hole or lens at one side through which an image is projected onto a wall or table opposite the hole.
''Camera obscura'' can also refer to analogous constructions such as a box or tent in w ...
described by Mo-tzu (or
Mozi
Mozi (; ; Latinized as Micius ; – ), original name Mo Di (), was a Chinese philosopher who founded the school of Mohism during the Hundred Schools of Thought period (the early portion of the Warring States period, –221 BCE). The ancie ...
Ancient China
The earliest known written records of the history of China date from as early as 1250 BC, from the Shang dynasty (c. 1600–1046 BC), during the reign of king Wu Ding. Ancient historical texts such as the '' Book of Documents'' (early chapt ...
.
* 4th century BC:
Gear
A gear is a rotating circular machine part having cut teeth or, in the case of a cogwheel or gearwheel, inserted teeth (called ''cogs''), which mesh with another (compatible) toothed part to transmit (convert) torque and speed. The basic ...
s in
Ancient China
The earliest known written records of the history of China date from as early as 1250 BC, from the Shang dynasty (c. 1600–1046 BC), during the reign of king Wu Ding. Ancient historical texts such as the '' Book of Documents'' (early chapt ...
* 4th century BC:
Reed pen
A reed pen ( grc-gre, κάλαμοι '; singular ') is a writing implement made by cutting and shaping a single reed straw or length of bamboo.
History and manufacture
Reed pens with regular features such as a split nib have been found in Anci ...
s, utilising a split nib, were used to write with ink on
Papyrus
Papyrus ( ) is a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, '' Cyperus papyrus'', a wetland sedge. ''Papyrus'' (plural: ''papyri'') can also refer to ...
in Egypt.
*4th century BC: Nailed
Horseshoe
A horseshoe is a fabricated product designed to protect a horse hoof from wear. Shoes are attached on the palmar surface (ground side) of the hooves, usually nailed through the insensitive hoof wall that is anatomically akin to the human ...
Corporation
A corporation is an organization—usually a group of people or a company—authorized by the state to act as a single entity (a legal entity recognized by private and public law "born out of statute"; a legal person in legal context) and ...
s in either the
Maurya Empire
The Maurya Empire, or the Mauryan Empire, was a geographically extensive Iron Age historical power in the Indian subcontinent based in Magadha, having been founded by Chandragupta Maurya in 322 BCE, and existing in loose-knit fashion until ...
of India or in Ancient Rome (
Collegium
A (plural ), or college, was any association in ancient Rome that acted as a legal entity. Following the passage of the ''Lex Julia'' during the reign of Julius Caesar as Consul and Dictator of the Roman Republic (49–44 BC), and their rea ...
).
* Late 4th century BC:
Cheque
A cheque, or check (American English; see spelling differences) is a document that orders a bank (or credit union) to pay a specific amount of money from a person's account to the person in whose name the cheque has been issued. The pers ...
in the
Maurya Empire
The Maurya Empire, or the Mauryan Empire, was a geographically extensive Iron Age historical power in the Indian subcontinent based in Magadha, having been founded by Chandragupta Maurya in 322 BCE, and existing in loose-knit fashion until ...
of India.
* Late 4th century BC:
Potassium nitrate
Potassium nitrate is a chemical compound with the chemical formula . This alkali metal nitrate salt is also known as Indian saltpetre (large deposits of which were historically mined in India). It is an ionic salt of potassium ions K+ and ...
manufacturing and military use in the
Seleucid Empire
The Seleucid Empire (; grc, Βασιλεία τῶν Σελευκιδῶν, ''Basileía tōn Seleukidōn'') was a Greek state in West Asia that existed during the Hellenistic period from 312 BC to 63 BC. The Seleucid Empire was founded by the ...
.
* Late 4th century BC:
Formal system
A formal system is an abstract structure used for inferring theorems from axioms according to a set of rules. These rules, which are used for carrying out the inference of theorems from axioms, are the logical calculus of the formal system.
A fo ...
s by
Pāṇini
, era = ;;6th–5th century BCE
, region = Indian philosophy
, main_interests = Grammar, linguistics
, notable_works = ' ( Classical Sanskrit)
, influenced=
, notable_ideas= Descriptive linguistics
(Devana ...
in India, possibly during the reign of
Chandragupta Maurya
Chandragupta Maurya (350-295 BCE) was a ruler in Ancient India who expanded a geographically-extensive kingdom based in Magadha and founded the Maurya dynasty. He reigned from 320 BCE to 298 BCE. The Maurya kingdom expanded to become an emp ...
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...
during the
Maurya Empire
The Maurya Empire, or the Mauryan Empire, was a geographically extensive Iron Age historical power in the Indian subcontinent based in Magadha, having been founded by Chandragupta Maurya in 322 BCE, and existing in loose-knit fashion until ...
. The earliest known zinc mines and smelting sites are from Zawar, near
Udaipur
Udaipur () ( ISO 15919: ''Udayapura''), historically named as Udayapura, is a city and municipal corporation in Udaipur district of the state of Rajasthan, India. It is the administrative headquarter of Udaipur district. It is the historic ...
, in
Rajasthan
Rajasthan (; lit. 'Land of Kings') is a state in northern India. It covers or 10.4 per cent of India's total geographical area. It is the largest Indian state by area and the seventh largest by population. It is on India's northwestern ...
.
3rd century BC
* 3rd century BC:
Analog computers
An analog computer or analogue computer is a type of computer that uses the continuous variation aspect of physical phenomena such as electrical, mechanical, or hydraulic quantities (''analog signals'') to model the problem being solved. In ...
in the Hellenistic world (see e.g. the
Antikythera mechanism
The Antikythera mechanism ( ) is an Ancient Greek hand-powered orrery, described as the oldest example of an analogue computer used to predict astronomical positions and eclipses decades in advance. It could also be used to track the four-y ...
), possibly in
Rhodes
Rhodes (; el, Ρόδος , translit=Ródos ) is the largest and the historical capital of the Dodecanese islands of Greece. Administratively, the island forms a separate municipality within the Rhodes regional unit, which is part of the S ...
.
* By at least the 3rd century BC:
Archimedes' screw
The Archimedes screw, also known as the Archimedean screw, hydrodynamic screw, water screw or Egyptian screw, is one of the earliest hydraulic machines. Using Archimedes screws as water pumps (Archimedes screw pump (ASP) or screw pump) dates back ...
in
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity ( AD 600), that comprised a loose collection of cu ...
* Early 3rd century BC:
Canal lock
A lock is a device used for raising and lowering boats, ships and other watercraft between stretches of water of different levels on river and canal waterways. The distinguishing feature of a lock is a fixed chamber in which the water ...
in
Canal of the Pharaohs
The Canal of the Pharaohs, also called the Ancient Suez Canal or Necho's Canal, is the forerunner of the Suez Canal, constructed in ancient times and kept in use, with intermissions, until being closed for good in 767 AD for strategic reasons du ...
under
Ptolemy II
; egy, Userkanaenre Meryamun Clayton (2006) p. 208
, predecessor = Ptolemy I
, successor = Ptolemy III
, horus = ''ḥwnw-ḳni'Khunuqeni''The brave youth
, nebty = ''wr-pḥtj'Urpekhti''Great of strength
, gold ...
Cam
Calmodulin (CaM) (an abbreviation for calcium-modulated protein) is a multifunctional intermediate calcium-binding messenger protein expressed in all eukaryotic cells. It is an intracellular target of the secondary messenger Ca2+, and the bin ...
during the
Hellenistic period
In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in ...
, used in water-driven
automata
An automaton (; plural: automata or automatons) is a relatively self-operating machine, or control mechanism designed to automatically follow a sequence of operations, or respond to predetermined instructions.Automaton – Definition and More ...
.
* By the 3rd century BC:
Water wheel
A water wheel is a machine for converting the energy of flowing or falling water into useful forms of power, often in a watermill. A water wheel consists of a wheel (usually constructed from wood or metal), with a number of blades or buckets ...
. The origin is unclear: Indian Pali texts dating to the 4th century BCE refer to the ''cakkavattaka'', which later commentaries describe as ''arahatta-ghati-yanta'' (machine with wheel-pots attached). Helaine Selin suggests that the device existed in Persia before 350 BC. The clearest description of the water wheel and
Liquid-driven escapement
An escapement is a mechanical linkage in mechanical watches and clocks that gives impulses to the timekeeping element and periodically releases the gear train to move forward, advancing the clock's hands. The impulse action transfers energy to ...
is provided by Philo of Byzantium (c. 280 – 220 BC) in the Hellenistic kingdoms.
* 3rd century BC:
Gimbal
A gimbal is a pivoted support that permits rotation of an object about an axis. A set of three gimbals, one mounted on the other with orthogonal pivot axes, may be used to allow an object mounted on the innermost gimbal to remain independent of ...
described by Philo of Byzantium
* Late 3rd century BC:
Dry dock
A dry dock (sometimes drydock or dry-dock) is a narrow basin or vessel that can be flooded to allow a load to be floated in, then drained to allow that load to come to rest on a dry platform. Dry docks are used for the construction, maintenance, ...
under
Ptolemy IV
egy, Iwaennetjerwymenkhwy Setepptah Userkare Sekhemankhamun Clayton (2006) p. 208.
, predecessor = Ptolemy III
, successor = Ptolemy V
, horus = ''ḥnw-ḳni sḫꜤi.n-sw-it.f'Khunuqeni sekhaensuitef'' The strong youth whose f ...
Blast furnace
A blast furnace is a type of metallurgical furnace used for smelting to produce industrial metals, generally pig iron, but also others such as lead or copper. ''Blast'' refers to the combustion air being "forced" or supplied above atmospheri ...
in
Ancient China
The earliest known written records of the history of China date from as early as 1250 BC, from the Shang dynasty (c. 1600–1046 BC), during the reign of king Wu Ding. Ancient historical texts such as the '' Book of Documents'' (early chapt ...
: The earliest discovered blast furnaces in China date to the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC, although most sites are from the later
Han dynasty
The Han dynasty (, ; ) was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China (202 BC – 9 AD, 25–220 AD), established by Emperor Gaozu of Han, Liu Bang (Emperor Gao) and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by th ...
.
2nd century BC
* 2nd century BC:
Paper
Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, rags, grasses or other vegetable sources in water, draining the water through fine mesh leaving the fibre evenly distribu ...
in
Han dynasty
The Han dynasty (, ; ) was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China (202 BC – 9 AD, 25–220 AD), established by Emperor Gaozu of Han, Liu Bang (Emperor Gao) and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by th ...
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...
1st century BC
* 1st century BC: Segmental
arch bridge
An arch bridge is a bridge with abutments at each end shaped as a curved arch. Arch bridges work by transferring the weight of the bridge and its loads partially into a horizontal thrust restrained by the abutments at either side. A viaduct ...
Ponte San Lorenzo
The Ponte San Lorenzo is a Roman bridge over the river Bacchiglione in Padua, Italy. Constructed between 47 and 30 BC, it is one of the very earliest segmental arched bridges in the world. It is also notable for the slenderness of its piers, ...
) in
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
,
Roman Republic
The Roman Republic ( la, Res publica Romana ) was a form of government of Rome and the era of the classical Roman civilization when it was run through public representation of the Roman people. Beginning with the overthrow of the Roman Ki ...
* 1st century BC: News bulletin during the reign of Julius Caesar. A paper form, i.e. the earliest
newspaper
A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background.
Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, spor ...
, later appeared during the late Han dynasty in the form of the Dibao.Irving Fang, ''A History of Mass Communication: Six Information Revolutions'', Focal Press, 1997, p. 30
* 1st century BC:
Arch dam
An arch dam is a concrete dam that is curved upstream in plan. The arch dam is designed so that the force of the water against it, known as hydrostatic pressure, presses against the arch, causing the arch to straighten slightly and strengthe ...
(
Glanum Dam
__NOTOC__
The Glanum Dam, also known as the ''Vallon de Baume'' dam, was a Roman arch dam built to supply water to the Roman town of Glanum, the remains of which stand outside the town of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence in Southern France. It was situat ...
) in
Gallia Narbonensis
Gallia Narbonensis (Latin for "Gaul of Narbonne", from its chief settlement) was a Roman province located in what is now Languedoc and Provence, in Southern France. It was also known as Provincia Nostra ("Our Province"), because it was th ...
,
Roman Republic
The Roman Republic ( la, Res publica Romana ) was a form of government of Rome and the era of the classical Roman civilization when it was run through public representation of the Roman people. Beginning with the overthrow of the Roman Ki ...
(see also
List of Roman dams
This is a list of Roman dams and reservoirs. The study of Roman dam-building has received little scholarly attention in comparison to their other civil engineering activities, even though their contributions in this field have been ranked alon ...
)
* Before 40 BC:
Trip hammer
A trip hammer, also known as a tilt hammer or helve hammer, is a massive powered hammer. Traditional uses of trip hammers include pounding, wikt:decorticate, decorticating and polishing of grain in agriculture. In mining, trip hammers were used f ...
in
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...
Needham, Volume 4, Part 2, 184.
* 38 BC: An empty shell Glyph for
zero
0 (zero) is a number representing an empty quantity. In place-value notation such as the Hindu–Arabic numeral system, 0 also serves as a placeholder numerical digit, which works by Multiplication, multiplying digits to the left of 0 by th ...
, is found on a
Maya numerals
The Mayan numeral system was the system to represent numbers and calendar dates in the Maya civilization
The Maya civilization () of the Mesoamerican people is known by its ancient temples and glyphs. Its Maya script is the most sop ...
Stela, from Chiapa de Corzo,
Chiapas
Chiapas (; Tzotzil and Tzeltal: ''Chyapas'' ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Chiapas ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Chiapas), is one of the states that make up the 32 federal entities of Mexico. It comprises 124 municipalities ...
. Independently invented by
Claudius Ptolemy
Claudius Ptolemy (; grc-gre, Πτολεμαῖος, ; la, Claudius Ptolemaeus; AD) was a mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist, who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were of importa ...
, in the second century CE Egypt, and appearing in the calculations of the
Almagest
The ''Almagest'' is a 2nd-century Greek-language mathematical and astronomical treatise on the apparent motions of the stars and planetary paths, written by Claudius Ptolemy ( ). One of the most influential scientific texts in history, it can ...
.
* Before 25 BC:
Reverse overshot water wheel
Frequently used in mines and probably elsewhere (such as agricultural drainage), the reverse overshot water wheel was a Roman innovation to help remove water from the lowest levels of underground workings. It is described by Vitruvius in his work ' ...
Rio Tinto Rio Tinto, meaning "red river", may refer to:
Businesses
* Rio Tinto (corporation), an Anglo-Australian multinational mining and resources corporation
** Rio Tinto Alcan, based in Canada
** Rio Tinto Borax in America
*** Rio Tinto Borax Mine, ...
, Spain
* 37-14:
Glass blowing
Glassblowing is a glassforming technique that involves inflating molten glass into a bubble (or parison) with the aid of a blowpipe (or blow tube). A person who blows glass is called a ''glassblower'', ''glassmith'', or ''gaffer''. A '' lampworke ...
developed in Jerusalem.Avigad, N (1983). ''Discovering Jerusalem''. Nashville. Tatton-Brown, V. (1991). "The Roman Empire". In H. Tait (ed.) ''Five Thousand Years of Glass''. pp. 62–97. British Museum Press: London
1st century
* 1st century: The
aeolipile
An aeolipile, aeolipyle, or eolipile, from the Greek "αιολουπυλη", also known as a Hero's engine, is a simple, bladeless radial steam turbine which spins when the central water container is heated. Torque is produced by steam jets ex ...
, a simple
steam turbine
A steam turbine is a machine that extracts thermal energy from pressurized steam and uses it to do mechanical work on a rotating output shaft. Its modern manifestation was invented by Charles Parsons in 1884. Fabrication of a modern steam tu ...
is recorded by Hero of Alexandria.
* 1st century:
Vending machine
A vending machine is an automated machine that provides items such as snacks, beverages, cigarettes, and lottery tickets to consumers after cash, a credit card, or other forms of payment are inserted into the machine or otherwise made. The fi ...
s invented by
Hero of Alexandria
Hero of Alexandria (; grc-gre, Ἥρων ὁ Ἀλεξανδρεύς, ''Heron ho Alexandreus'', also known as Heron of Alexandria ; 60 AD) was a Greek mathematician and engineer who was active in his native city of Alexandria, Roman Egypt. H ...
.
* By the 1st century: The
double-entry bookkeeping system
Double-entry bookkeeping, also known as double-entry accounting, is a method of bookkeeping that relies on a two-sided accounting entry to maintain financial information. Every entry to an account requires a corresponding and opposite entry to ...
in the Roman Empire.
2nd century
* 132:
Seismometer
A seismometer is an instrument that responds to ground noises and shaking such as caused by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and explosions. They are usually combined with a timing device and a recording device to form a seismograph. The outpu ...
and
pendulum
A pendulum is a weight suspended from a pivot so that it can swing freely. When a pendulum is displaced sideways from its resting, equilibrium position, it is subject to a restoring force due to gravity that will accelerate it back toward th ...
in
Han dynasty
The Han dynasty (, ; ) was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China (202 BC – 9 AD, 25–220 AD), established by Emperor Gaozu of Han, Liu Bang (Emperor Gao) and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by th ...
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...
, built by
Zhang Heng
Zhang Heng (; AD 78–139), formerly romanized as Chang Heng, was a Chinese polymathic scientist and statesman who lived during the Han dynasty. Educated in the capital cities of Luoyang and Chang'an, he achieved success as an astronomer, mat ...
. It is a large metal urn-shaped instrument which employed either a suspended pendulum or inverted pendulum acting on inertia, like the ground tremors from
earthquake
An earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the shaking of the surface of the Earth resulting from a sudden release of energy in the Earth's lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, fr ...
s, to dislodge a metal ball by a lever trip device.
* 2nd century:
Carding
Carding is a mechanical process that disentangles, cleans and intermixes fibres to produce a continuous web or sliver suitable for subsequent processing. This is achieved by passing the fibres between differentially moving surfaces covered with ...
in India.Baber (1996), page 57
3rd century
* By at least the 3rd century: Crystallized sugar in India.
* Early 3rd century:
Woodblock printing
Woodblock printing or block printing is a technique for printing text, images or patterns used widely throughout East Asia and originating in China in antiquity as a method of printing on textiles and later paper. Each page or image is crea ...
is invented in
Han dynasty
The Han dynasty (, ; ) was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China (202 BC – 9 AD, 25–220 AD), established by Emperor Gaozu of Han, Liu Bang (Emperor Gao) and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by th ...
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...
at sometime before 220 AD. This made China become the world's first
print culture
Print culture embodies all forms of printed text and other printed forms of visual communication. One prominent scholar of print culture in Europe is Elizabeth Eisenstein, who contrasted the print culture of Europe in the centuries after the ad ...
.
* Late 3rd–early 4th century:
Water turbine
A water turbine is a rotary machine that converts kinetic energy and potential energy of water into mechanical work.
Water turbines were developed in the 19th century and were widely used for industrial power prior to electrical grids. Now, ...
in the
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Roman Republic, Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings aro ...
in modern-day
Tunisia
)
, image_map = Tunisia location (orthographic projection).svg
, map_caption = Location of Tunisia in northern Africa
, image_map2 =
, capital = Tunis
, largest_city = capital
, ...
.
4th century
* 280-550 AD:
Chess
Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to dist ...
in India during the
Gupta Empire
The Gupta Empire was an ancient Indian empire which existed from the early 4th century CE to late 6th century CE. At its zenith, from approximately 319 to 467 CE, it covered much of the Indian subcontinent. This period is considered as the Gold ...
.
* 4th century: Roman Dichroic glass, which displays one of two different colors depending on lighting conditions.
* 4th century:
Mariner's compass
A compass is a device that shows the cardinal directions used for navigation and geographic orientation. It commonly consists of a magnetized needle or other element, such as a compass card or compass rose, which can pivot to align itself with ...
in Tamil Southern India: the first mention of the use of a compass for navigational purposes is found in Tamil nautical texts as the ''macchayantra''. However, the theoretical notion of magnets pointing North predates the device by several centuries.
* 4th century:
Simple suspension bridge
A simple suspension bridge (also rope bridge, swing bridge (in New Zealand), suspended bridge, hanging bridge and catenary bridge) is a primitive type of bridge in which the deck of the bridge lies on two parallel load-bearing cables that ar ...
, independently invented in Pre-Columbian South America, and the
Hindu Kush
The Hindu Kush is an mountain range in Central and South Asia to the west of the Himalayas. It stretches from central and western Afghanistan, Quote: "The Hindu Kush mountains run along the Afghan border with the North-West Frontier Province ...
range, of present day
Afghanistan
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is borde ...
and
Pakistan
Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...
. With Han dynasty travellers noting bridges being constructed from 3 or more vines or 3 ropes.Needham, Joseph. (1986d). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 4, Physics and Physical Technology, Part 3, Civil Engineering and Nautics. Taipei: Caves Books Ltd. , 187–189. Later bridges constructed utilising cables of iron chains appeared in Tibet.
* 4th century:
Fishing reel
A fishing reel is a hand- cranked reel used in angling to wind and stow fishing line, typical mounted onto a fishing rod, but may also be used to retrieve a tethered arrow when bowfishing.
Modern recreational fishing reels usually have fitting ...
in
Ancient China
The earliest known written records of the history of China date from as early as 1250 BC, from the Shang dynasty (c. 1600–1046 BC), during the reign of king Wu Ding. Ancient historical texts such as the '' Book of Documents'' (early chapt ...
: In literary records, the earliest evidence of the fishing reel comes from a 4th-century AD work entitled ''Lives of Famous Immortals''.
* 347 AD:
Oil Well
An oil well is a drillhole boring in Earth that is designed to bring petroleum oil hydrocarbons to the surface. Usually some natural gas is released as associated petroleum gas along with the oil. A well that is designed to produce only gas ma ...
s and
Borehole
A borehole is a narrow shaft bored in the ground, either vertically or horizontally. A borehole may be constructed for many different purposes, including the extraction of water ( drilled water well and tube well), other liquids (such as petrol ...
drilling in
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...
. Such wells could reach depths of up to 240 m (790 ft).
* 4th–5th century:
Paddle wheel boat
A paddle steamer is a steamship or steamboat powered by a steam engine that drives paddle wheels to propel the craft through the water. In antiquity, paddle wheelers followed the development of poles, oars and sails, where the first uses were w ...
(in ''
De rebus bellicis
''De rebus bellicis'' ("On the Things of Wars") is an anonymous work of the 4th or 5th century which suggests remedies for the military and financial problems in the Roman Empire, including a number of fanciful war machines. It was written af ...
'') in
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Roman Republic, Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings aro ...
Mathura
Mathura () is a city and the administrative headquarters of Mathura district in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. It is located approximately north of Agra, and south-east of Delhi; about from the town of Vrindavan, and from Govardhan. ...
by the
Gupta Empire
The Gupta Empire was an ancient Indian empire which existed from the early 4th century CE to late 6th century CE. At its zenith, from approximately 319 to 467 CE, it covered much of the Indian subcontinent. This period is considered as the Gold ...
shows the development of rust-resistant ferrous metallurgy in Ancient India, although original texts do not survive to detail the specific processes invented in this period.
* 5th century: The
horse collar
A horse collar is a part of a horse harness that is used to distribute the load around a horse's neck and shoulders when pulling a wagon or plough. The collar often supports and pads a pair of curved metal or wooden pieces, called hames, to whi ...
as a fully developed collar harness is developed in
Southern and Northern Dynasties
The Northern and Southern dynasties () was a period of political division in the history of China that lasted from 420 to 589, following the tumultuous era of the Sixteen Kingdoms and the Eastern Jin dynasty. It is sometimes considered as ...
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...
during the 5th century AD.Needham, Volume 4, Part 2, 28. The earliest depiction of it is a
Dunhuang
Dunhuang () is a county-level city in Northwestern Gansu Province, Western China. According to the 2010 Chinese census, the city has a population of 186,027, though 2019 estimates put the city's population at about 191,800. Dunhuang was a major s ...
cave
mural
A mural is any piece of graphic artwork that is painted or applied directly to a wall, ceiling or other permanent substrate. Mural techniques include fresco, mosaic, graffiti and marouflage.
Word mural in art
The word ''mural'' is a Spanis ...
from the Chinese
Northern Wei Dynasty
Wei (), known in historiography as the Northern Wei (), Tuoba Wei (), Yuan Wei () and Later Wei (), was founded by the Tuoba (Tabgach) clan of the Xianbei. The first of the Northern dynasties, it ruled northern China from 386 to 535 during t ...
, the
painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and a ...
dated to 477–499.Needham, Volume 4, Part 2, 322.
* 5th/6th century: Pointed arch bridge (
Karamagara Bridge
The Karamagara Bridge ( tr, Karamağara Köprüsü, "Bridge of the Black Cave") is a Byzantine or late Roman bridge in the ancient region of Cappadocia in eastern Turkey, and possibly the earliest known pointed arch bridge.
The bridge, along ...
) in
Cappadocia
Cappadocia or Capadocia (; tr, Kapadokya), is a historical region in Central Anatolia, Turkey. It largely is in the provinces Nevşehir, Kayseri, Aksaray, Kırşehir, Sivas and Niğde.
According to Herodotus, in the time of the Ionian Revo ...
,
Eastern Roman Empire
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantino ...
6th century
* By the 6th century:
Incense clock
The incense clock () is a timekeeping device that originated from China during the Song Dynasty (960-1279) and spread to neighboring East Asian countries such as Japan and Korea. The clocks' bodies are effectively specialized censers that hold i ...
in India and China.Schafer (1963), pages 160-161Bedini (1994), pages 69-80
* after 500 AD: Charkha (spinning wheel/cotton gin) invented in India (probably during the
Vakataka dynasty
The Vakataka dynasty () was an ancient Indian dynasty that originated from the Deccan in the mid-3rd century CE. Their state is believed to have extended from the southern edges of Malwa and Gujarat in the north to the Tungabhadra River in the ...
of
Maharashtra
Maharashtra (; , abbr. MH or Maha) is a state in the western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. Maharashtra is the second-most populous state in India and the second-most populous country subdi ...
), between 500 and 1000 A.D.
* 563 AD:
Pendentive
In architecture, a pendentive is a constructional device permitting the placing of a circular dome over a square room or of an elliptical dome over a rectangular room. The pendentives, which are triangular segments of a sphere, taper to point ...
dome
A dome () is an architectural element similar to the hollow upper half of a sphere. There is significant overlap with the term cupola, which may also refer to a dome or a structure on top of a dome. The precise definition of a dome has been a m ...
(
Hagia Sophia
Hagia Sophia ( 'Holy Wisdom'; ; ; ), officially the Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque ( tr, Ayasofya-i Kebir Cami-i Şerifi), is a mosque and major cultural and historical site in Istanbul, Turkey. The cathedral was originally built as a Greek Ortho ...
Eastern Roman Empire
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantino ...
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...
.
* 589 AD:
Toilet paper
Toilet paper (sometimes called toilet tissue or bathroom tissue) is a tissue paper product primarily used to clean the anus and surrounding anal region of feces after defecation, and to clean the perineal area and external genitalia of ur ...
in
Sui dynasty
The Sui dynasty (, ) was a short-lived imperial dynasty of China that lasted from 581 to 618. The Sui unified the Northern and Southern dynasties, thus ending the long period of division following the fall of the Western Jin dynasty, and la ...
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...
, first mentioned by the official
Yan Zhitui
Yan Zhitui (, 531–591) courtesy name Jie () was a Chinese calligrapher, painter, musician, writer, philosopher and politician who served four different Chinese states during the late Northern and Southern dynasties: the Liang Dynasty in so ...
(531–591), with full evidence of continual use in subsequent dynasties.Needham, Volume 5, Part 1, 123.
7th century
* 650 AD
Windmill
A windmill is a structure that converts wind power into rotational energy using vanes called sails or blades, specifically to mill grain (gristmills), but the term is also extended to windpumps, wind turbines, and other applications, in some ...
in Persia
* 672 AD:
Greek fire
Greek fire was an incendiary weapon used by the Eastern Roman Empire beginning . Used to set fire to enemy ships, it consisted of a combustible compound emitted by a flame-throwing weapon. Some historians believe it could be ignited on contact w ...
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...
: Greek fire, an
incendiary weapon
Incendiary weapons, incendiary devices, incendiary munitions, or incendiary bombs are weapons designed to start fires or destroy sensitive equipment using fire (and sometimes used as anti-personnel weaponry), that use materials such as napalm, th ...
likely based on
petroleum
Petroleum, also known as crude oil, or simply oil, is a naturally occurring yellowish-black liquid mixture of mainly hydrocarbons, and is found in geological formations. The name ''petroleum'' covers both naturally occurring unprocessed crud ...
or
naphtha
Naphtha ( or ) is a flammable liquid hydrocarbon mixture.
Mixtures labelled ''naphtha'' have been produced from natural gas condensates, petroleum distillates, and the distillation of coal tar and peat. In different industries and regions ' ...
, is invented by Kallinikos, a Lebanese Greek refugee from
Baalbek
Baalbek (; ar, بَعْلَبَكّ, Baʿlabakk, Syriac-Aramaic: ܒܥܠܒܟ) is a city located east of the Litani River in Lebanon's Beqaa Valley, about northeast of Beirut. It is the capital of Baalbek-Hermel Governorate. In Greek and Roman ...
, as described by Theophanes. However, the historicity and exact chronology of this account is dubious, and it could be that Kallinikos merely introduced an improved version of an established weapon.
* 7th century:
Banknote
A banknote—also called a bill (North American English), paper money, or simply a note—is a type of negotiable instrument, negotiable promissory note, made by a bank or other licensed authority, payable to the bearer on demand.
Banknotes w ...
in
Tang dynasty
The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, t= ), or Tang Empire, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an Zhou dynasty (690–705), interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dyn ...
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...
Tang
Tang or TANG most often refers to:
* Tang dynasty
* Tang (drink mix)
Tang or TANG may also refer to:
Chinese states and dynasties
* Jin (Chinese state) (11th century – 376 BC), a state during the Spring and Autumn period, called Tang (唐) ...
and
Song
A song is a musical composition intended to be performed by the human voice. This is often done at distinct and fixed pitches (melodies) using patterns of sound and silence. Songs contain various forms, such as those including the repetiti ...
dynasties, starting in the 7th century. Its roots are in merchant
receipt
A receipt (also known as a packing list, packing slip, packaging slip, (delivery) docket, shipping list, delivery list, bill of the parcel, manifest, or customer receipt) is a document acknowledging that a person has received money or proper ...
s of deposit during the Tang Dynasty (618–907), as
merchants
A merchant is a person who trades in commodities produced by other people, especially one who trades with foreign countries. Historically, a merchant is anyone who is involved in business or trade. Merchants have operated for as long as industry ...
and
wholesaler
Wholesaling or distributing is the sale of goods or merchandise to retailers; to industrial, commercial, institutional or other professional business users; or to other wholesalers (wholesale businesses) and related subordinated services. In ...
s desire to avoid the heavy bulk of copper coinage in large commercial transactions.Ebrey, Walthall, and Palais (2006), 156.Bowman (2000), 105.Gernet (1962), 80.
* 7th century:
Porcelain
Porcelain () is a ceramic material made by heating substances, generally including materials such as kaolinite, in a kiln to temperatures between . The strength and translucence of porcelain, relative to other types of pottery, arises main ...
in
Tang dynasty
The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, t= ), or Tang Empire, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an Zhou dynasty (690–705), interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dyn ...
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...
: True porcelain is manufactured in northern China from roughly the beginning of the Tang Dynasty in the 7th century, while true porcelain was not manufactured in southern China until about 300 years later, during the early 10th century.
8th century
9th century
* 9th century:
Gunpowder
Gunpowder, also commonly known as black powder to distinguish it from modern smokeless powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It consists of a mixture of sulfur, carbon (in the form of charcoal) and potassium nitrate (saltpeter). T ...
in
Tang dynasty
The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, t= ), or Tang Empire, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an Zhou dynasty (690–705), interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dyn ...
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...
: Gunpowder is, according to prevailing academic consensus, discovered in the 9th century by
Chinese alchemists
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**'' Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of v ...
searching for an
elixir of immortality
The elixir of life, also known as elixir of immortality, is a potion that supposedly grants the drinker eternal life and/or eternal youth. This elixir was also said to cure all diseases. Alchemists in various ages and cultures sought the means ...
.Jack Kelly ''Gunpowder: Alchemy, Bombards, and Pyrotechnics: The History of the Explosive that Changed the World'', Perseus Books Group: 2005, , 9780465037223: pp. 2-5 Evidence of gunpowder's first use in China comes from the
Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period
The Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period (), from 907 to 979, was an era of political upheaval and division in 10th-century Imperial China. Five dynastic states quickly succeeded one another in the Central Plain, and more than a dozen conc ...
(618–907). The earliest known recorded recipes for gunpowder are written by Zeng Gongliang, Ding Du, and Yang Weide in the ''
Wujing Zongyao
The ''Wujing Zongyao'' (), sometimes rendered in English as the ''Complete Essentials for the Military Classics'', is a Chinese military compendium written from around 1040 to 1044.
The book was compiled during the Northern Song dynasty by Z ...
'', a military manuscript compiled in 1044 during the Song Dynasty (960–1279).Gernet (1996), 311.
* 857-859: Degree-granting
university
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United Stat ...
in Morocco
10th century
* 10th century:
Fire lance
The fire lance () was a gunpowder weapon and the ancestor of modern firearms. It first appeared in 10th–12th century China and was used to great effect during the Jin-Song Wars. It began as a small pyrotechnic device attached to a polearm weap ...
in
Song dynasty
The Song dynasty (; ; 960–1279) was an imperial dynasty of China that began in 960 and lasted until 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song following his usurpation of the throne of the Later Zhou. The Song conquered the res ...
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...
, developed in the 10th century with a tube of first bamboo and later on metal that shot a weak
gunpowder
Gunpowder, also commonly known as black powder to distinguish it from modern smokeless powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It consists of a mixture of sulfur, carbon (in the form of charcoal) and potassium nitrate (saltpeter). T ...
blast of flame and shrapnel, its earliest depiction is a painting found at
Dunhuang
Dunhuang () is a county-level city in Northwestern Gansu Province, Western China. According to the 2010 Chinese census, the city has a population of 186,027, though 2019 estimates put the city's population at about 191,800. Dunhuang was a major s ...
. Fire lance is the earliest
firearm
A firearm is any type of gun designed to be readily carried and used by an individual. The term is legally defined further in different countries (see Legal definitions).
The first firearms originated in 10th-century China, when bamboo tubes ...
in the world and one of the earliest gunpowder weapons.
* 10th century:
Fireworks
Fireworks are a class of low explosive pyrotechnic devices used for aesthetic and entertainment purposes. They are most commonly used in fireworks displays (also called a fireworks show or pyrotechnics), combining a large number of devices ...
in
Song dynasty
The Song dynasty (; ; 960–1279) was an imperial dynasty of China that began in 960 and lasted until 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song following his usurpation of the throne of the Later Zhou. The Song conquered the res ...
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...
: Fireworks first appear in China during the Song Dynasty (960–1279), in the early age of
gunpowder
Gunpowder, also commonly known as black powder to distinguish it from modern smokeless powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It consists of a mixture of sulfur, carbon (in the form of charcoal) and potassium nitrate (saltpeter). T ...
. Fireworks could be purchased from market vendors; these were made of sticks of
bamboo
Bamboos are a diverse group of evergreen perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family. The origin of the word "bamboo" is uncertain, ...
packed with gunpowder.
11th century
* 11th century:
Ambulance
An ambulance is a medically equipped vehicle which transports patients to treatment facilities, such as hospitals. Typically, out-of-hospital medical care is provided to the patient during the transport.
Ambulances are used to respond to med ...
by Crusaders in Palestine and Lebanon
* 11th century: Early versions of the
Bessemer process
The Bessemer process was the first inexpensive industrial process for the mass production of steel from molten pig iron before the development of the open hearth furnace. The key principle is removal of impurities from the iron by oxidation ...
Movable type
Movable type (US English; moveable type in British English) is the system and technology of printing and typography that uses movable components to reproduce the elements of a document (usually individual alphanumeric characters or punctuation m ...
in
Song dynasty
The Song dynasty (; ; 960–1279) was an imperial dynasty of China that began in 960 and lasted until 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song following his usurpation of the throne of the Later Zhou. The Song conquered the res ...
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...
: The first record of a movable type system is in the ''
Dream Pool Essays
''The Dream Pool Essays'' (or ''Dream Torrent Essays'') was an extensive book written by the Chinese polymath and statesman Shen Kuo (1031–1095), published in 1088 during the Song dynasty (960–1279) of China. Shen compiled this encycloped ...
'', which attributes the invention of the movable type to
Bi Sheng
Bi Sheng (; 972–1051 AD) was a Chinese artisan, engineer, and inventor of the world's first movable type technology, with printing being one of the Four Great Inventions. Bi Sheng's system was made of Chinese porcelain and was invented betwe ...
Rocket
A rocket (from it, rocchetto, , bobbin/spool) is a vehicle that uses jet propulsion to accelerate without using the surrounding air. A rocket engine produces thrust by reaction to exhaust expelled at high speed. Rocket engines work entir ...
for military and recreational uses date back to at least 13th-century China.
* 13th century: The earliest form of mechanical escapement, the
verge escapement
The verge (or crown wheel) escapement is the earliest known type of mechanical escapement, the mechanism in a mechanical clock that controls its rate by allowing the gear train to advance at regular intervals or 'ticks'. Its origin is unknown. V ...
in
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
.
* 13th century:
Button
A button is a fastener that joins two pieces of fabric together by slipping through a loop or by sliding through a buttonhole.
In modern clothing and fashion design, buttons are commonly made of plastic but also may be made of metal, wood, o ...
s (combined with buttonholes) as a functional fastening for closing clothes appear first in
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...
.
* 1277:
Land mine
A land mine is an explosive device concealed under or on the ground and designed to destroy or disable enemy targets, ranging from combatants to vehicles and tanks, as they pass over or near it. Such a device is typically detonated automati ...
in
Song dynasty
The Song dynasty (; ; 960–1279) was an imperial dynasty of China that began in 960 and lasted until 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song following his usurpation of the throne of the Later Zhou. The Song conquered the res ...
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...
: Textual evidence suggests that the first use of a land mine in history is by a Song Dynasty brigadier general known as Lou Qianxia, who uses an 'enormous bomb' (''huo pao'') to kill Mongol soldiers invading
Guangxi
Guangxi (; ; alternately romanized as Kwanghsi; ; za, Gvangjsih, italics=yes), officially the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region (GZAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China, located in South China and bordering Vietnam ...
in 1277.
* 1286:
Eyeglasses
Glasses, also known as eyeglasses or spectacles, are vision eyewear, with lenses (clear or tinted) mounted in a frame that holds them in front of a person's eyes, typically utilizing a bridge over the nose and hinged arms (known as temples or ...
in
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
Song Dynasty
The Song dynasty (; ; 960–1279) was an imperial dynasty of China that began in 960 and lasted until 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song following his usurpation of the throne of the Later Zhou. The Song conquered the res ...
city. The first accounts of bombs made of cast iron shells packed with explosive gunpowder are documented in the 13th century in China and are called "thunder-crash bombs", coined during a Jin dynasty naval battle in 1231.Needham (1986), Volume 5, Part 7, 171.
* 13th century:
Hand cannon
The hand cannon ( Chinese: 手 銃 ''shŏuchòng'', or 火 銃 ''huŏchòng''), also known as the gonne or handgonne, is the first true firearm and the successor of the fire lance. It is the oldest type of small arms as well as the most mech ...
in
Yuan dynasty
The Yuan dynasty (), officially the Great Yuan (; xng, , , literally "Great Yuan State"), was a Mongol-led imperial dynasty of China and a successor state to the Mongol Empire after its division. It was established by Kublai, the fif ...
China: The earliest hand cannon dates to the 13th century based on archaeological evidence from a
Heilongjiang
Heilongjiang () Postal romanization, formerly romanized as Heilungkiang, is a Provinces of China, province in northeast China. The standard one-character abbreviation for the province is (). It was formerly romanized as "Heilungkiang". It is th ...
excavation. There is also written evidence in the ''Yuanshi'' (1370) on Li Tang, an ethnic Jurchen commander under the Yuan Dynasty who in 1288 suppresses the rebellion of the Christian prince Nayan with his "gun-soldiers" or ''chongzu'', this being the earliest known event where this phrase is used.
* 13th or 14th century: Worm gear cotton gin in Peninsular India (i.e. probably under the
Yadava dynasty
The Seuna, Sevuna, or Yadavas of Devagiri ( IAST: Seuṇa, –1317) was a Medieval Indian dynasty, which at its peak ruled a kingdom stretching from the Narmada river in the north to the Tungabhadra river in the south, in the western part of ...
although may also be the
Vijayanagara Empire
The Vijayanagara Empire, also called the Karnata Kingdom, was a Hindu empire based in the region of South India, which consisted the modern states of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Goa and some parts of Telangana and Mahar ...
or
Bahmani Sultanate
The Bahmani Sultanate, or Deccan, was a Persianate Sunni Muslim Indian Kingdom located in the Deccan Plateau, Deccan region. It was the first independent Muslim kingdom of the Deccan,
).
14th century
* Early to Mid 1300s:
Multistage rocket
A multistage rocket or step rocket is a launch vehicle that uses two or more rocket ''stages'', each of which contains its own engines and propellant. A ''tandem'' or ''serial'' stage is mounted on top of another stage; a ''parallel'' stage i ...
in
Ming dynasty
The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last ort ...
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...
described in ''
Huolongjing
The ''Huolongjing'' (; Wade-Giles: ''Huo Lung Ching''; rendered in English as ''Fire Drake Manual'' or ''Fire Dragon Manual''), also known as ''Huoqitu'' (“Firearm Illustrations”), is a Chinese military treatise compiled and edited by Jiao ...
'' by
Jiao Yu
Jiao Yu () was a Chinese military general, philosopher, and writer of the Yuan dynasty and early Ming dynasty under Zhu Yuanzhang, who founded the dynasty and became known as the Hongwu Emperor. He was entrusted by Zhu as a leading artillery ...
.
* By at least 1326:
Cannon
A cannon is a large- caliber gun classified as a type of artillery, which usually launches a projectile using explosive chemical propellant. Gunpowder ("black powder") was the primary propellant before the invention of smokeless powder ...
in
Ming dynasty
The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last ort ...
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...
* 14th century:
Jacob's staff
The term Jacob's staff is used to refer to several things, also known as cross-staff, a ballastella, a fore-staff, a ballestilla, or a balestilha. In its most basic form, a Jacob's staff is a stick or pole with length markings; most staffs ar ...
described by
Levi ben Gerson
Levi ben Gershon (1288 – 20 April 1344), better known by his Graecized name as Gersonides, or by his Latinized name Magister Leo Hebraeus, or in Hebrew by the abbreviation of first letters as ''RaLBaG'', was a medieval French Jewish philosoph ...
* 14th century:
Naval mine
A naval mine is a self-contained explosive device placed in water to damage or destroy surface ships or submarines. Unlike depth charges, mines are deposited and left to wait until they are triggered by the approach of, or contact with, an ...
in
Ming dynasty
The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last ort ...
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...
: Mentioned in the ''
Huolongjing
The ''Huolongjing'' (; Wade-Giles: ''Huo Lung Ching''; rendered in English as ''Fire Drake Manual'' or ''Fire Dragon Manual''), also known as ''Huoqitu'' (“Firearm Illustrations”), is a Chinese military treatise compiled and edited by Jiao ...
'' military manuscript written by
Jiao Yu
Jiao Yu () was a Chinese military general, philosopher, and writer of the Yuan dynasty and early Ming dynasty under Zhu Yuanzhang, who founded the dynasty and became known as the Hongwu Emperor. He was entrusted by Zhu as a leading artillery ...
(fl. 14th to early 15th century) and
Liu Bowen
Liu Ji (1 July 1311 – 16 May 1375),Jiang, Yonglin. Jiang Yonglin. 005(2005). The Great Ming Code: 大明律. University of Washington Press. , 9780295984490. Page xxxv. The source is used to cover the year only. courtesy name Bowen, better kn ...
(1311–1375), describing naval mines used at sea or on rivers and lakes, made of
wrought iron
Wrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon content (less than 0.08%) in contrast to that of cast iron (2.1% to 4%). It is a semi-fused mass of iron with fibrous slag inclusions (up to 2% by weight), which give it a wood-like "grain" ...
and enclosed in an ox bladder. A later model is documented in
Song Yingxing
Song Yingxing (Traditional Chinese: 宋應星; Simplified Chinese: 宋应星; Wade Giles: Sung Ying-Hsing; 1587-1666 AD) was a Chinese scientist and encyclopedist who lived during the late Ming Dynasty (1368–1644). He was the author of ''Tian ...
's encyclopedia written in 1637.
15th century
* Early 15th century:
Coil spring
A selection of conical coil springs
The most common type of spring is the coil spring, which is made out of a long piece of metal that is wound around itself.
Coil springs were in use in Roman times, evidence of this can be found in bronze Fib ...
in
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
, p.126-127
* 15th century:
Mainspring
A mainspring is a spiral torsion spring of metal ribbon—commonly spring steel—used as a power source in mechanical watches, some clocks, and other clockwork mechanisms. ''Winding'' the timepiece, by turning a knob or key, stores energy in ...
in Europe
* 15th century:
Rifle
A rifle is a long-barreled firearm designed for accurate shooting, with a barrel that has a helical pattern of grooves ( rifling) cut into the bore wall. In keeping with their focus on accuracy, rifles are typically designed to be held with ...
in Europe
* 1420s:
Brace
Brace(s) or bracing may refer to:
Medical
* Orthopaedic brace, a device used to restrict or assist body movement
** Back brace, a device limiting motion of the spine
*** Milwaukee brace, a kind of back brace used in the treatment of spinal cur ...
Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire was a Polity, political entity in Western Europe, Western, Central Europe, Central, and Southern Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, dissolution i ...
White, Lynn (1962): "Medieval Technology and Social Change", At the Clarendon Press, Oxford, p. 112
* 1439:
Printing press
A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a printing, print medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring the ink. It marked a dramatic improvement on earlier printing methods in wh ...
in
Mainz, Germany
Mainz () is the capital and largest city of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.
Mainz is on the left bank of the Rhine, opposite to the place that the Main (river), Main joins the Rhine. Downstream of the confluence, the Rhine flows to the north-we ...
: The printing press is invented in the
Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire was a Polity, political entity in Western Europe, Western, Central Europe, Central, and Southern Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, dissolution i ...
by
Johannes Gutenberg
Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg (; – 3 February 1468) was a German inventor and Artisan, craftsman who introduced letterpress printing to Europe with his movable type, movable-type printing press. Though not the first of its ki ...
before 1440, based on existing
screw press
A screw press is a type of machine press in which the ram is driven up and down by a screw. The screw shaft can be driven by a handle or a wheel. It works by using a coarse screw to convert the rotation of the handle or drive-wheel into a small d ...
es. The first confirmed record of a press appeared in a 1439
lawsuit
-
A lawsuit is a proceeding by a party or parties against another in the civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today. The term "lawsuit" is used in reference to a civil actio ...
against Gutenberg.Meggs, Philip B. A History of Graphic Design. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 1998. (pp 58–69)
* Mid 15th century: The
Arquebus
An arquebus ( ) is a form of long gun that appeared in Europe and the Ottoman Empire during the 15th century. An infantryman armed with an arquebus is called an arquebusier.
Although the term ''arquebus'', derived from the Dutch word ''Haakbus ...
(also spelled Harquebus) is invented, possibly in Spain.
* 1480s:
Mariner's astrolabe
The mariner's astrolabe, also called sea astrolabe, was an inclinometer used to determine the latitude of a ship at sea by measuring the sun's noon altitude (declination) or the meridian altitude of a star of known declination. Not an astrolabe ...
Floating Dry Dock
Floating may refer to:
* a type of dental work performed on horse teeth
* use of an isolation tank
* the guitar
The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and ...
in
Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...
,
Venetian Republic
The Republic of Venice ( vec, Repùblega de Venèsia) or Venetian Republic ( vec, Repùblega Vèneta, links=no), traditionally known as La Serenissima ( en, Most Serene Republic of Venice, italics=yes; vec, Serenìsima Repùblega de Venèsia, ...
* 1569:
Mercator Projection
The Mercator projection () is a cylindrical map projection presented by Flemish geographer and cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569. It became the standard map projection for navigation because it is unique in representing north as up and sou ...
map created by
Gerardus Mercator
Gerardus Mercator (; 5 March 1512 – 2 December 1594) was a 16th-century geographer, cosmographer and Cartography, cartographer from the County of Flanders. He is most renowned for creating the Mercator 1569 world map, 1569 world map based on ...
* 1589:
Stocking frame
A stocking frame was a mechanical knitting machine used in the textiles industry. It was invented by William Lee of Calverton near Nottingham in 1589. Its use, known traditionally as framework knitting, was the first major stage in the mechan ...
Backstaff
The backstaff is a navigational instrument that was used to measure the altitude of a celestial body, in particular the Sun or Moon. When observing the Sun, users kept the Sun to their back (hence the name) and observed the shadow cast by the u ...
: Invented by Captain John Davis.
* By at least 1597:
Revolver
A revolver (also called a wheel gun) is a repeating handgun that has at least one barrel and uses a revolving cylinder containing multiple chambers (each holding a single cartridge) for firing. Because most revolver models hold up to six roun ...
: Invented by Hans Stopler.
Modern era
17th century
* 1605:
Newspaper
A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background.
Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sports a ...
(''
Relation
Relation or relations may refer to:
General uses
*International relations, the study of interconnection of politics, economics, and law on a global level
*Interpersonal relationship, association or acquaintance between two or more people
*Public ...
''):
Johann Carolus
Johann Carolus (26 March 1575 − 15 August 1634) was a German publisher of the first newspaper, called ''Relation aller Fürnemmen und gedenckwürdigen Historien'' (Account of all distinguished and commemorable stories). The ''Relation'' is re ...
in
Strassburg
Strasbourg (, , ; german: Straßburg ; gsw, label=Bas Rhin Alsatian, Strossburi , gsw, label=Haut Rhin Alsatian, Strossburig ) is the prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est region of eastern France and the official seat of the Eur ...
(see also
List of the oldest newspapers
This list of the oldest newspapers sorts the newspapers of the world by the date of their first publication. The earliest newspapers date to 17th century Europe when printed periodicals began rapidly to replace the practice of hand-writing news ...
)World Association of Newspapers "Newspapers: 400 Years Young!" Weber, Johannes (2006): "Strassburg, 1605: The Origins of the Newspaper in Europe", ''German History'', Vol. 24, No. 3, pp. 387–412 (396f.)
* 1608:
Telescope
A telescope is a device used to observe distant objects by their emission, absorption, or reflection of electromagnetic radiation. Originally meaning only an optical instrument using lenses, curved mirrors, or a combination of both to observe ...
: Patent applied for by
Hans Lippershey
Hans Lipperhey (circa 1570 – buried 29 September 1619), also known as Johann Lippershey or Lippershey, was a German-Dutch spectacle-maker. He is commonly associated with the invention of the telescope, because he was the first one who tried to ...
. Actual inventor unknown since it seemed to already be a common item being offered by the spectacle makers in the Netherlands with
Jacob Metius Jacob (Jacobus; sometimes James) Metius (after 1571–1628) was a Dutch instrument-maker and a specialist in grinding lenses. He is primarily known for the patent application he made for an optical telescope in October 1608, a few weeks after H ...
also applying for patent and the son of
Zacharias Janssen
Zacharias Janssen; also Zacharias Jansen or Sacharias Jansen; 1585 – pre-1632) was a Dutch spectacle-maker who lived most of his life in Middelburg. He is associated with the invention of the first optical telescope and/or the first truly ...
making a claim 47 years later that his father invented it.
* c. 1620: Compound microscopes, which combine an
objective lens
In optical engineering, the objective is the optical element that gathers light from the object being observed and Focus (optics), focuses the ray (optics), light rays to produce a real image. Objectives can be a single Lens (optics), lens or mirr ...
with an
eyepiece
An eyepiece, or ocular lens, is a type of lens that is attached to a variety of optical devices such as telescopes and microscopes. It is named because it is usually the lens that is closest to the eye when someone looks through the device. The ...
to view a
real image
{{citations needed, date=June 2019
In optics, an ''image'' is defined as the collection of focus points of light rays coming from an object. A real image is the collection of focus points actually made by converging/diverging rays, while a v ...
, first appear in Europe. Apparently derived from the telescope, actual inventor unknown, variously attributed to
Zacharias Janssen
Zacharias Janssen; also Zacharias Jansen or Sacharias Jansen; 1585 – pre-1632) was a Dutch spectacle-maker who lived most of his life in Middelburg. He is associated with the invention of the first optical telescope and/or the first truly ...
(his son claiming it was invented in 1590),
Cornelis Drebbel
Cornelis Jacobszoon Drebbel ( ) (1572 – 7 November 1633) was a Dutch engineer and inventor. He was the builder of the first operational submarine in 1620 and an innovator who contributed to the development of measurement and control systems, op ...
, and
Galileo Galilei
Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642) was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a polymath. Commonly referred to as Galileo, his name was pronounced (, ). He was ...
.
* 1630:
Slide rule
The slide rule is a mechanical analog computer which is used primarily for multiplication and division, and for functions such as exponents, roots, logarithms, and trigonometry. It is not typically designed for addition or subtraction, which is ...
: invented by
William Oughtred
William Oughtred ( ; 5 March 1574 – 30 June 1660), also Owtred, Uhtred, etc., was an Kingdom of England, English mathematician and Anglican ministry, Anglican clergyman.'Oughtred (William)', in P. Bayle, translated and revised by J.P. Bernar ...
* 1642:
Mechanical calculator
A mechanical calculator, or calculating machine, is a mechanical device used to perform the basic operations of arithmetic automatically, or (historically) a simulation such as an analog computer or a slide rule. Most mechanical calculators wer ...
Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal ( , , ; ; 19 June 1623 – 19 August 1662) was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, philosopher, and Catholic Church, Catholic writer.
He was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a tax collector in Rouen. Pa ...
* 1643:
Barometer
A barometer is a scientific instrument that is used to measure air pressure in a certain environment. Pressure tendency can forecast short term changes in the weather. Many measurements of air pressure are used within surface weather analysis ...
: invented by
Evangelista Torricelli
Evangelista Torricelli ( , also , ; 15 October 160825 October 1647) was an Italian physicist and mathematician, and a student of Galileo. He is best known for his invention of the barometer, but is also known for his advances in optics and work o ...
, or possibly up to three years earlier by
Gasparo Berti
Gasparo Berti ( 1600–1643) was an Italian mathematician, astronomer and physicist. He was probably born in Mantua and spent most of his life in Rome. He is most famous today for his experiment in which he unknowingly created the first working ba ...
.
* 1650:
Vacuum pump
A vacuum pump is a device that draws gas molecules from a sealed volume in order to leave behind a partial vacuum. The job of a vacuum pump is to generate a relative vacuum within a capacity. The first vacuum pump was invented in 1650 by Otto v ...
: Invented by
Otto von Guericke
Otto von Guericke ( , , ; spelled Gericke until 1666; November 20, 1602 – May 11, 1686 ; November 30, 1602 – May 21, 1686 ) was a German scientist, inventor, and politician. His pioneering scientific work, the development of experimental me ...
.
* 1656:
Pendulum clock
A pendulum clock is a clock that uses a pendulum, a swinging weight, as its timekeeping element. The advantage of a pendulum for timekeeping is that it is a harmonic oscillator: It swings back and forth in a precise time interval dependent on it ...
: Invented by
Christiaan Huygens
Christiaan Huygens, Lord of Zeelhem, ( , , ; also spelled Huyghens; la, Hugenius; 14 April 1629 – 8 July 1695) was a Dutch mathematician, physicist, engineer, astronomer, and inventor, who is regarded as one of the greatest scientists of ...
. It was first conceptualized in 1637 by
Galileo Galilei
Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642) was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a polymath. Commonly referred to as Galileo, his name was pronounced (, ). He was ...
but he was unable to create a working model.
* 1663: Friction machine: Invented by
Otto von Guericke
Otto von Guericke ( , , ; spelled Gericke until 1666; November 20, 1602 – May 11, 1686 ; November 30, 1602 – May 21, 1686 ) was a German scientist, inventor, and politician. His pioneering scientific work, the development of experimental me ...
.
* 1680:
Christiaan Huygens
Christiaan Huygens, Lord of Zeelhem, ( , , ; also spelled Huyghens; la, Hugenius; 14 April 1629 – 8 July 1695) was a Dutch mathematician, physicist, engineer, astronomer, and inventor, who is regarded as one of the greatest scientists of ...
provides the first known description of a
piston engine
A reciprocating engine, also often known as a piston engine, is typically a heat engine that uses one or more reciprocating pistons to convert high temperature and high pressure into a rotating motion. This article describes the common featu ...
.
18th century
1700s
* c. 1709:
Bartolomeo Cristofori
Bartolomeo Cristofori di Francesco (; May 4, 1655 – January 27, 1731) was an Italian maker of musical instruments famous for inventing the piano.
Life
The available source materials on Cristofori's life include his birth and death recor ...
crafts the first
piano
The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...
.
* 1709:
Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit
Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit FRS (; ; 24 May 1686 – 16 September 1736) was a physicist, inventor, and scientific instrument maker. Born in Poland to a family of German extraction, he later moved to the Dutch Republic at age 15, where he spen ...
invents the alcohol
thermometer
A thermometer is a device that temperature measurement, measures temperature or a temperature gradient (the degree of hotness or coldness of an object). A thermometer has two important elements: (1) a temperature sensor (e.g. the bulb of a merc ...
.
1710s
* 1712:
Thomas Newcomen
Thomas Newcomen (; February 1664 – 5 August 1729) was an English inventor who created the atmospheric engine, the first practical fuel-burning engine in 1712. He was an ironmonger by trade and a Baptist lay preacher by calling.
He ...
builds the first commercial steam engine to pump water out of mines. Newcomen's engine, unlike
Thomas Savery
Thomas Savery (; c. 1650 – 15 May 1715) was an English inventor and engineer. He invented the first commercially used steam-powered device, a steam pump which is often referred to as the "Savery engine". Savery's steam pump was a revolutiona ...
John Hadley
John Hadley (16 April 1682 – 14 February 1744) was an English mathematician, and laid claim to the invention of the octant, two years after Thomas Godfrey claimed the same.
Biography
He was born in Bloomsbury, London the eldest son of ...
independently develop the octant
* 1733: John Kay enables one person to operate a loom with the
flying shuttle
The flying shuttle was one of the key developments in the industrialization of weaving during the early Industrial Revolution. It allowed a single weaver to weave much wider fabrics, and it could be mechanized, allowing for automatic machine l ...
* 1736:
John Harrison
John Harrison ( – 24 March 1776) was a self-educated English Carpentry, carpenter and clockmaker who invented the marine chronometer, a long-sought-after device for solving the History of longitude, problem of calculating longitude while at s ...
tests his first Sea Clock, H1.
* 1738:
Lewis Paul
Lewis Paul (died 1759) was the original inventor of roller spinning, the basis of the water frame for spinning cotton in a cotton mill.
Life and work
Lewis Paul was of Huguenot descent. His father was physician to Lord Shaftesbury. He may hav ...
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin ( April 17, 1790) was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the leading inte ...
Kleist Kleist, or von Kleist, is a surname.
von Kleist:
*August von Kleist (1818–1890), Prussian Major General
*Conrad von Kleist (1839-1900), German politician (German Conservative Party), member of Reichstag
*Ewald Georg von Kleist (ca. 1700–1748), ...
independently develop the
Leyden jar
A Leyden jar (or Leiden jar, or archaically, sometimes Kleistian jar) is an electrical component that stores a high-voltage electric charge (from an external source) between electrical conductors on the inside and outside of a glass jar. It typi ...
, an early form of
capacitor
A capacitor is a device that stores electrical energy in an electric field by virtue of accumulating electric charges on two close surfaces insulated from each other. It is a passive electronic component with two terminals.
The effect of ...
.
* 1746:
John Roebuck
John Roebuck of Kinneil FRS FRSE (1718 – 17 July 1794) was an English inventor and industrialist who played an important role in the Industrial Revolution and who is known for developing the industrial-scale manufacture of sulphuric ac ...
invents the
lead chamber process
The lead chamber process was an industrial method used to produce sulfuric acid in large quantities. It has been largely supplanted by the contact process.
In 1746 in Birmingham, England, John Roebuck began producing sulfuric acid in lead-lined ...
.
1750s
* 1752:
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin ( April 17, 1790) was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the leading inte ...
invents the
lightning rod
A lightning rod or lightning conductor (British English) is a metal rod mounted on a structure and intended to protect the structure from a lightning strike. If lightning hits the structure, it will preferentially strike the rod and be conducte ...
.
* 1755:
William Cullen
William Cullen FRS FRSE FRCPE FPSG (; 15 April 17105 February 1790) was a Scottish physician, chemist and agriculturalist, and professor at the Edinburgh Medical School. Cullen was a central figure in the Scottish Enlightenment: He was Dav ...
invents the first artificial
refrigeration
The term refrigeration refers to the process of removing heat from an enclosed space or substance for the purpose of lowering the temperature.International Dictionary of Refrigeration, http://dictionary.iifiir.org/search.phpASHRAE Terminology, ht ...
machine.
1760s
* 1764:
James Hargreaves
James Hargreaves ( 1720 – 22 April 1778) was an English weaver, carpenter and inventor who lived and worked in Lancashire, England. He was one of three men responsible for the mechanisation of spinning: Hargreaves is credited with inventing ...
invents the
spinning jenny
The spinning jenny is a multi-spindle spinning frame, and was one of the key developments in the industrialization of textile manufacturing during the early Industrial Revolution. It was invented in 1764 or 1765 by James Hargreaves in Stanhill ...
.
* 1765:
James Watt
James Watt (; 30 January 1736 (19 January 1736 OS) – 25 August 1819) was a Scottish inventor, mechanical engineer, and chemist who improved on Thomas Newcomen's 1712 Newcomen steam engine with his Watt steam engine in 1776, which was fun ...
invents the improved
steam engine
A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force can be trans ...
utilizing a separate condenser.
* 1767:
Joseph Priestley
Joseph Priestley (; 24 March 1733 – 6 February 1804) was an English chemist, natural philosopher, separatist theologian, grammarian, multi-subject educator, and liberal political theorist. He published over 150 works, and conducted exp ...
invents a method for the production of
carbonated water
Carbonated water (also known as soda water, sparkling water, fizzy water, club soda, water with gas, in many places as mineral water, or especially in the United States as seltzer or seltzer water) is water containing dissolved carbon dioxide gas, ...
.
* 1769:
Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot
Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot (26 February 1725 – 2 October 1804) was a French inventor who built the world's first full-size and working self-propelled mechanical land-vehicle, the "Fardier à vapeur" – effectively the world's first automobile.
B ...
invents the first steam-powered vehicle capable of carrying passengers, an early
car
A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people instead of goods.
The year 1886 is regarded as ...
.
1770s
* 1770: Richard Salter invents the earliest known design for a
weighing scale
A scale or balance is a device used to measure weight or mass. These are also known as mass scales, weight scales, mass balances, and weight balances.
The traditional scale consists of two plates or bowls suspended at equal distances from a ...
.
* 1774: John Wilkinson invents his boring machine, considered by some to be the first
machine tool
A machine tool is a machine for handling or machining metal or other rigid materials, usually by cutting, boring, grinding, shearing, or other forms of deformations. Machine tools employ some sort of tool that does the cutting or shaping. All m ...
.
* 1775:
Jesse Ramsden
Jesse Ramsden FRS FRSE (6 October 1735 – 5 November 1800) was a British mathematician, astronomical and scientific instrument maker. His reputation was built on the engraving and design of dividing engines which allowed high accuracy measureme ...
invents the modern
screw-cutting lathe
A screw-cutting lathe is a machine (specifically, a lathe) capable of cutting very accurate screw threads via single-point screw-cutting, which is the process of guiding the linear motion of the tool bit in a precisely known ratio to the rotatin ...
air compressor
An air compressor is a pneumatic device that converts power (using an electric motor, diesel or gasoline engine, etc.) into potential energy stored in pressurized air (i.e., compressed air). By one of several methods, an air compressor forces ...
that would become the prototype for all later mechanical compressors.
* 1778:
Robert Barron
Robert Emmet Barron (born November 19, 1959) is an American prelate of the Catholic Church who has served as bishop of the Diocese of Winona-Rochester since 2022. He is the founder of the Catholic ministerial organization Word on Fire, and ...
invents the first
lever tumbler lock
A lever tumbler lock is a type of lock that uses a set of levers to prevent the bolt from moving in the lock. In the simplest form of these, lifting the tumbler above a certain height will allow the bolt to slide past.
The number of levers may va ...
.
1780s
* 1783:
Claude de Jouffroy Claude may refer to:
__NOTOC__ People and fictional characters
* Claude (given name), a list of people and fictional characters
* Claude (surname), a list of people
* Claude Lorrain (c. 1600–1682), French landscape painter, draughtsman and etcher ...
builds the first
steamboat
A steamboat is a boat that is marine propulsion, propelled primarily by marine steam engine, steam power, typically driving propellers or Paddle steamer, paddlewheels. Steamboats sometimes use the ship prefix, prefix designation SS, S.S. or S/S ...
Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier
The Montgolfier brothers – Joseph-Michel Montgolfier (; 26 August 1740 – 26 June 1810) and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier (; 6 January 1745 – 2 August 1799) – were aviation pioneers, balloonists and paper manufacturers from the commune A ...
build the first manned
hot air balloon
A hot air balloon is a lighter-than-air aircraft consisting of a bag, called an envelope, which contains heated air. Suspended beneath is a gondola or wicker basket (in some long-distance or high-altitude balloons, a capsule), which carries p ...
.
* 1783:
Louis-Sébastien Lenormand
Louis-Sébastien Lenormand (May 25, 1757 – April 4, 1837) was a French chemist, physicist, inventor, monk, and a pioneer in parachuting.
He is considered as the first man to make a witnessed descent with a parachute and is also credited with ...
invents and uses the first modern
parachute
A parachute is a device used to slow the motion of an object through an atmosphere by creating drag or, in a ram-air parachute, aerodynamic lift. A major application is to support people, for recreation or as a safety device for aviators, who ...
.
* 1785:
Martinus van Marum
Martin(us) van Marum (20 March 1750, Delft – 26 December 1837, Haarlem) was a Dutch physician, inventor, scientist and teacher, who studied medicine and philosophy in Groningen. Van Marum introduced modern chemistry in the Netherlands after ...
is the first to use the
electrolysis
In chemistry and manufacturing, electrolysis is a technique that uses direct electric current (DC) to drive an otherwise non-spontaneous chemical reaction. Electrolysis is commercially important as a stage in the separation of elements from n ...
technique.
* 1786:
Andrew Meikle
Andrew Meikle (5 May 1719 – 27 November 1811) was a Scottish mechanical engineer credited with inventing the threshing machine, a device used to remove the outer husks from grains of wheat. He also had a hand in assisting Firbeck in the inve ...
invents the
threshing machine
A threshing machine or a thresher is a piece of farm equipment that threshes grain, that is, it removes the seeds from the stalks and husks. It does so by beating the plant to make the seeds fall out.
Before such machines were developed, threshi ...
.
* 1789:
Edmund Cartwright
Edmund Cartwright (24 April 174330 October 1823) was an English inventor. He graduated from Oxford University and went on to invent the power loom. Married to local Elizabeth McMac at 19, he was the brother of Major John Cartwright, a politic ...
invents the
power loom
A power loom is a mechanized loom, and was one of the key developments in the industrialization of weaving during the early Industrial Revolution. The first power loom was designed in 1786 by Edmund Cartwright and first built that same year. ...
.
1790s
* 1790: Thomas Saint invents the
sewing machine
A sewing machine is a machine used to sew fabric and materials together with thread. Sewing machines were invented during the first Industrial Revolution to decrease the amount of manual sewing work performed in clothing companies. Since the inv ...
.
* 1792:
Claude Chappe
Claude Chappe (; 25 December 1763 – 23 January 1805) was a French inventor who in 1792 demonstrated a practical semaphore system that eventually spanned all of France. His system consisted of a series of towers, each within line of sight of ...
invents the modern semaphore
telegraph
Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas p ...
.
* 1793:
Eli Whitney
Eli Whitney Jr. (December 8, 1765January 8, 1825) was an American inventor, widely known for inventing the cotton gin, one of the key inventions of the Industrial Revolution that shaped the economy of the Antebellum South.
Although Whitney hi ...
invents the modern
cotton gin
A cotton gin—meaning "cotton engine"—is a machine that quickly and easily separates cotton fibers from their seeds, enabling much greater productivity than manual cotton separation.. Reprinted by McGraw-Hill, New York and London, 1926 (); a ...
.
* 1795:
Joseph Bramah
Joseph Bramah (13 April 1748 – 9 December 1814), born Stainborough Lane Farm, Stainborough, in Barnsley, Yorkshire, was an English inventor and locksmith. He is best known for having improved the flush toilet and inventing the hydraulic pr ...
invents the
hydraulic press
A hydraulic press is a machine press using a hydraulic cylinder to generate a compressive force. It uses the hydraulic equivalent of a mechanical lever, and was also known as a Bramah press after the inventor, Joseph Bramah, of England. He inven ...
.
* 1796:
Alois Senefelder
Johann Alois Senefelder (6 November 177126 February 1834) was a German actor and playwright who invented the printing technique of lithography in the 1790s.Meggs, Philip B. A History of Graphic Design. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 1998. p 146
Acto ...
invents the
lithography
Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German a ...
printing technique.Meggs, Philip B. A History of Graphic Design. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 1998. p 146
* 1797:
Samuel Bentham
Sir Samuel Bentham (11 January 1757 – 31 May 1831) was a noted English mechanical engineer and naval architect credited with numerous innovations, particularly related to naval architecture, including weapons. He was the only surviving siblin ...
invents
plywood
Plywood is a material manufactured from thin layers or "plies" of wood veneer that are glued together with adjacent layers having their wood grain rotated up to 90 degrees to one another. It is an engineered wood from the family of manufactured ...
.
* 1798:
Edward Jenner
Edward Jenner, (17 May 1749 – 26 January 1823) was a British physician and scientist who pioneered the concept of vaccines, and created the smallpox vaccine, the world's first vaccine. The terms ''vaccine'' and ''vaccination'' are derived f ...
develops the first
vaccine
A vaccine is a biological Dosage form, preparation that provides active acquired immunity to a particular infectious disease, infectious or cancer, malignant disease. The safety and effectiveness of vaccines has been widely studied and verifie ...
, the
smallpox vaccine
The smallpox vaccine is the first vaccine to be developed against a contagious disease. In 1796, British physician Edward Jenner demonstrated that an infection with the relatively mild cowpox virus conferred immunity against the deadly smallpox ...
air compressor
An air compressor is a pneumatic device that converts power (using an electric motor, diesel or gasoline engine, etc.) into potential energy stored in pressurized air (i.e., compressed air). By one of several methods, an air compressor forces ...
.
* 1799: The first
paper machine
A paper machine (or paper-making machine) is an industrial machine which is used in the pulp and paper industry
to create paper in large quantities at high speed. Modern paper-making machines are based on the principles of the Fourdrinier Machin ...
is invented by
Louis-Nicolas Robert
Nicolas Louis Robert (2 December 1761 – 8 August 1828) was a French soldier and mechanical engineer, who is credited with a paper-making invention that became the blueprint of the Fourdrinier machine.
In 1799, Robert patented the first machine ...
.
19th century
1800s
* 1800:
Alessandro Volta
Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta (, ; 18 February 1745 – 5 March 1827) was an Italian physicist, chemist and lay Catholic who was a pioneer of electricity and power who is credited as the inventor of the electric battery and the ...
invents the
voltaic pile
upright=1.2, Schematic diagram of a copper–zinc voltaic pile. The copper and zinc discs were separated by cardboard or felt spacers soaked in salt water (the electrolyte). Volta's original piles contained an additional zinc disk at the bottom, ...
, an early form of
battery
Battery most often refers to:
* Electric battery, a device that provides electrical power
* Battery (crime), a crime involving unlawful physical contact
Battery may also refer to:
Energy source
*Automotive battery, a device to provide power t ...
in
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
, based on previous works by
Luigi Galvani
Luigi Galvani (, also ; ; la, Aloysius Galvanus; 9 September 1737 – 4 December 1798) was an Italian physician, physicist, biologist and philosopher, who studied animal electricity. In 1780, he discovered that the muscles of dead frogs' legs ...
.
* 1802:
Humphry Davy
Sir Humphry Davy, 1st Baronet, (17 December 177829 May 1829) was a British chemist and inventor who invented the Davy lamp and a very early form of arc lamp. He is also remembered for isolating, by using electricity, several elements for t ...
invents the
arc lamp
An arc lamp or arc light is a lamp that produces light by an electric arc (also called a voltaic arc).
The carbon arc light, which consists of an arc between carbon electrodes in air, invented by Humphry Davy in the first decade of the 1800s, ...
(exact date unclear; not practical as a light source until the invention of efficient electric generators).
* 1804:
Friedrich Sertürner
Friedrich Wilhelm Adam Sertürner (19 June 1783 – 20 February 1841) was a German pharmacist and a pioneer of alkaloid chemistry. He is best known for his discovery of morphine in 1804.
Biography
Friedrich Wilhelm Adam Sertürner was born to J ...
discovers
morphine
Morphine is a strong opiate that is found naturally in opium, a dark brown resin in poppies (''Papaver somniferum''). It is mainly used as a analgesic, pain medication, and is also commonly used recreational drug, recreationally, or to make ...
as the first active alkaloid extracted from the opium poppy plant.
* 1804:
Richard Trevithick
Richard Trevithick (13 April 1771 – 22 April 1833) was a British inventor and mining engineer. The son of a mining captain, and born in the mining heartland of Cornwall, Trevithick was immersed in mining and engineering from an early age. He w ...
invents the
steam locomotive
A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, oil or, rarely, wood) to heat water in the locomot ...
.
* 1804:
Hanaoka Seishū
was a Japanese surgeon of the Edo period with a knowledge of Chinese herbal medicine, as well as Western surgical techniques he had learned through ''Rangaku'' (literally "Dutch learning", and by extension "Western learning"). Hanaoka is said t ...
creates tsūsensan, the first modern
general anesthetic
General anaesthetics (or anesthetics, see spelling differences) are often defined as compounds that induce a loss of consciousness in humans or loss of righting reflex in animals. Clinical definitions are also extended to include an induced coma ...
.
* 1807:
Nicéphore Niépce
Joseph Nicéphore Niépce (; 7 March 1765 – 5 July 1833), commonly known or referred to simply as Nicéphore Niépce, was a French inventor, usually credited with the invention of photography. Niépce developed heliography, a technique he use ...
invents the first
internal combustion engine
An internal combustion engine (ICE or IC engine) is a heat engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer (usually air) in a combustion chamber that is an integral part of the working fluid flow circuit. In an internal combus ...
capable of doing useful work.
* 1807:
François Isaac de Rivaz
François Isaac de Rivaz (Paris, December 19, 1752 – Sion, July 30, 1828) was a French-born Swiss inventor and a politician. He invented a hydrogen-powered internal combustion engine with electric ignition and described it in a French paten ...
designs the first automobile powered by an
internal combustion engine
An internal combustion engine (ICE or IC engine) is a heat engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer (usually air) in a combustion chamber that is an integral part of the working fluid flow circuit. In an internal combus ...
fuelled by
hydrogen
Hydrogen is the chemical element with the symbol H and atomic number 1. Hydrogen is the lightest element. At standard conditions hydrogen is a gas of diatomic molecules having the formula . It is colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, an ...
.
* 1807:
Robert Fulton
Robert Fulton (November 14, 1765 – February 24, 1815) was an American engineer and inventor who is widely credited with developing the world's first commercially successful steamboat, the (also known as ''Clermont''). In 1807, that steamboat ...
expands water transportation and trade with the workable steamboat.
1810s
* 1810:
Nicolas Appert
Nicolas Appert (17 November 1749 – 1 June 1841) was the French inventor of airtight food preservation. Appert, known as the "father of Food Science", was a confectioner. Appert described his invention as a way "of conserving all kinds of food ...
invents the
canning
Canning is a method of food preservation in which food is processed and sealed in an airtight container (jars like Mason jars, and steel and tin cans). Canning provides a shelf life that typically ranges from one to five years, although u ...
process for food.
*1810:
Abraham-Louis Breguet
Abraham-Louis Breguet (10 January 1747 – 17 September 1823), born in Neuchâtel, then a Prussian principality, was a horologist who made many innovations in the course of a career in watchmaking industry. He was the founder of the Bregue ...
creates the first wristwatch.
* 1811:
Friedrich Koenig
Friedrich Gottlob Koenig (17 April 1774 – 17 January 1833) was a German inventor best known for his high-speed steam-powered printing press, which he built together with watchmaker Andreas Friedrich Bauer. This new style of printing press ...
invents the first powered
printing press
A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a printing, print medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring the ink. It marked a dramatic improvement on earlier printing methods in wh ...
, which was also the first to use a cylinder.
* 1812:
William Reid Clanny
William Reid Clanny FRSE (1776 – 10 January 1850) was an Irish physician and inventor of a safety lamp.
Life
Clanny was born in Bangor, County Down, Kingdom of Ireland. He trained as a physician at Edinburgh, and served as an assistant surgeo ...
pioneered the invention of the
safety lamp
A safety lamp is any of several types of lamp that provides illumination in coal mines and is designed to operate in air that may contain coal dust or gases, both of which are potentially flammable or explosive. Until the development of effectiv ...
which he improved in later years. Safety lamps based on Clanny's improved design were used until the adoption of electric lamps.
* 1814:
James Fox
William Fox (born 19 May 1939), known professionally as James Fox, is an English actor. He appeared in several notable films of the 1960s and early 1970s, including '' King Rat'', ''The Servant'', ''Thoroughly Modern Millie'' and ''Performanc ...
invents the modern
planing machine
A planer is a type of metalworking machine tool that uses linear relative motion between the workpiece and a single-point cutting tool to cut the work piece.Parker, Dana T. ''Building Victory: Aircraft Manufacturing in the Los Angeles Area in Wo ...
, though
Matthew Murray
Matthew Murray (1765 – 20 February 1826) was an English steam engine and machine tool manufacturer, who designed and built the first commercially viable steam locomotive, the twin cylinder ''Salamanca'' in 1812. He was an innovative design ...
of
Leeds
Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by populati ...
Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
have also been credited at times with its invention.
* 1816:
Francis Ronalds
Sir Francis Ronalds FRS (21 February 17888 August 1873) was an English scientist and inventor, and arguably the first electrical engineer. He was knighted for creating the first working electric telegraph over a substantial distance. In 1816 ...
builds the first working
electric telegraph
Electrical telegraphs were point-to-point text messaging systems, primarily used from the 1840s until the late 20th century. It was the first electrical telecommunications system and the most widely used of a number of early messaging systems ...
using
electrostatic
Electrostatics is a branch of physics that studies electric charges at rest (static electricity).
Since classical times, it has been known that some materials, such as amber, attract lightweight particles after rubbing. The Greek word for amber ...
means.
* 1816:
Robert Stirling
Robert Stirling (25 October 1790 – 6 June 1878) was a Scottish clergyman and engineer. He invented the Stirling engine and was inducted into the Scottish Engineering Hall of Fame in 2014.
Early life
Robert Stirling was born at Fatal Fiel ...
invents the
Stirling engine
A Stirling engine is a heat engine that is operated by the cyclic compression and expansion of air or other gas (the ''working fluid'') between different temperatures, resulting in a net conversion of heat energy to mechanical work.
More specif ...
.
* 1817: Baron
Karl von Drais
Karl Freiherr von Drais (full name: Karl Friedrich Christian Ludwig Freiherr Drais von Sauerbronn) (29 April 1785 – 10 December 1851) was a noble German forest official and significant inventor in the Biedermeier period. He was born and died ...
invents the
dandy horse
The dandy horse, a derogatory term for what was first called a Laufmaschine (in German), then a vélocipède or draisienne (in French and then English), and then a pedestrian curricle or hobby-horse, or swiftwalker, is a human-powered vehicle th ...
, an early
velocipede
A velocipede () is a human-powered land vehicle with one or more wheels. The most common type of velocipede today is the bicycle.
The term was probably first coined by Karl von Drais in French as ''vélocipède'' for the French translation o ...
and precursor to the modern
bicycle
A bicycle, also called a pedal cycle, bike or cycle, is a human-powered or motor-powered assisted, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, having two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A is called a cyclist, or bicyclist.
Bic ...
.
* 1818:
Marc Isambard Brunel
Sir Marc Isambard Brunel (, ; 25 April 1769 – 12 December 1849) was a French-British engineer who is most famous for the work he did in Britain. He constructed the Thames Tunnel and was the father of Isambard Kingdom Brunel.
Born in Franc ...
invents the
tunnelling shield
A tunnelling shield is a protective structure used during the excavation of large, man-made tunnels. When excavating through ground that is soft, liquid, or otherwise unstable, there is a potential health and safety hazard to workers and the proj ...
.
1820s
* 1822: Thomas Blanchard invents the pattern-tracing lathe (actually more like a
shaper
A shaper is a type of machine tool that uses linear relative motion between the workpiece and a single-point cutting tool to machine a linear toolpath. Its cut is analogous to that of a lathe, except that it is (archetypally) linear instead of ...
). The lathe can copy symmetrical shapes and is used for making gun stocks, and later, ax handles. The lathe's patent is in force for 42 years.
* 1822:
Nicéphore Niépce
Joseph Nicéphore Niépce (; 7 March 1765 – 5 July 1833), commonly known or referred to simply as Nicéphore Niépce, was a French inventor, usually credited with the invention of photography. Niépce developed heliography, a technique he use ...
invents
Heliography
Heliography (in French, ''héliographie)'' from ''helios'' (Greek: ''ἥλιος'')'','' meaning "sun"'','' and ''graphein (γράφειν),'' "writing") is the photographic process invented, and named thus, by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce around ...
, the first photographic process.
* 1822:
Charles Babbage
Charles Babbage (; 26 December 1791 – 18 October 1871) was an English polymath. A mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer, Babbage originated the concept of a digital programmable computer.
Babbage is considered ...
mechanical computer
A mechanical computer is a computer built from mechanical components such as levers and gears rather than electronic components. The most common examples are adding machines and mechanical counters, which use the turning of gears to increment outp ...
.
* 1823:
Johann Wolfgang Döbereiner
Johann Wolfgang Döbereiner (13 December 1780 – 24 March 1849) was a German chemist who is best known for work that foreshadowed the periodic law for the chemical elements, and for inventing the first lighter, which was known as the Döberei ...
Johann Nikolaus von Dreyse
Johann Nicolaus von Dreyse (20 November 1787 – 9 December 1867) was a German firearms inventor and manufacturer. He is most famous for submitting the Dreyse needle gun in 1836 to the Prussian army, which was adopted for service in December 1840 ...
invents the
bolt-action rifle
Bolt-action is a type of manual firearm action that is operated by ''directly'' manipulating the bolt (firearms), bolt via a cocking handle, bolt handle, which is most commonly placed on the right-hand side of the weapon (as most users are r ...
.
* 1825:
William Sturgeon
William Sturgeon (22 May 1783 – 4 December 1850) was an English physicist and inventor who made the first electromagnets, and invented the first practical British electric motor.
Early life
Sturgeon was born on 22 May 1783 in Whittington, ...
invents the
electromagnet
An electromagnet is a type of magnet in which the magnetic field is produced by an electric current. Electromagnets usually consist of wire wound into a coil. A current through the wire creates a magnetic field which is concentrated in the ...
match
A match is a tool for starting a fire. Typically, matches are made of small wooden sticks or stiff paper. One end is coated with a material that can be ignited by friction generated by striking the match against a suitable surface. Wooden matc ...
.
* 1826: James Sharp invents and goes on to manufacture the first practical
gas stove
A gas stove is a stove that is fuelled by combustible gas such as syngas, natural gas, propane, butane, liquefied petroleum gas or other flammable gas. Before the advent of gas, cooking stoves relied on solid fuels such as coal or wood. The f ...
.
* 1828:
James Beaumont Neilson
James Beaumont Neilson (22 June 1792 – 18 January 1865) was a Scotland, Scottish inventor whose hot blast, hot-blast process greatly increased the efficiency of smelting iron.
Life
He was the son of the engineer Walter Neilson, a millwri ...
develops the
hot blast
Hot blast refers to the preheating of air blown into a blast furnace or other metallurgical process. As this considerably reduced the fuel consumed, hot blast was one of the most important technologies developed during the Industrial Revolution. ...
process.
* 1828:
Patrick Bell
Patrick Bell (12 May 1799 – 22 April 1869) was a Church of Scotland minister and inventor.
Biography
Born in the rural parish of Auchterhouse in Angus, Scotland, into a farming family, Bell chose to study divinity at the University of St Andre ...
invents the
reaping machine
A reaper is a farm implement or person that reaps (cuts and often also gathers) crops at harvest when they are ripe. Usually the crop involved is a cereal grass. The first documented reaping machines were Gallic reapers that were used in R ...
.
* 1828: Hungarian physicist
Ányos Jedlik
Ányos István Jedlik ( hu, Jedlik Ányos István; sk, Štefan Anián Jedlík; in older texts and publications: la, Stephanus Anianus Jedlik; 11 January 1800 – 13 December 1895) was a Hungarian inventor, engineer, physicist, and Bened ...
invents the first commutated rotary electromechanical machine with electromagnets.
* 1829: William Mann invents the compound
air compressor
An air compressor is a pneumatic device that converts power (using an electric motor, diesel or gasoline engine, etc.) into potential energy stored in pressurized air (i.e., compressed air). By one of several methods, an air compressor forces ...
.
* 1829:
Henry Robinson Palmer
Henry Robinson Palmer (1795–1844) was a British civil engineer who designed the world's second monorail and the first elevated railway. He is also credited as the inventor of corrugated metal roofing, still one of the world's major building m ...
is awarded a patent for
corrugated galvanised iron
Corrugated galvanised iron or steel, colloquially corrugated iron (near universal), wriggly tin (taken from UK military slang), pailing (in Caribbean English), corrugated sheet metal (in North America) and occasionally abbreviated CGI is a bu ...
lawn mower
A lawn mower (also known as a mower, grass cutter or lawnmower) is a device utilizing one or more revolving blades (or a reel) to cut a grass surface to an even height. The height of the cut grass may be fixed by the design of the mower, but g ...
.
* 1831:
Michael Faraday
Michael Faraday (; 22 September 1791 – 25 August 1867) was an English scientist who contributed to the study of electromagnetism and electrochemistry. His main discoveries include the principles underlying electromagnetic inducti ...
invents a method of
electromagnetic induction
Electromagnetic or magnetic induction is the production of an electromotive force (emf) across an electrical conductor in a changing magnetic field.
Michael Faraday is generally credited with the discovery of induction in 1831, and James Clerk ...
. It would be independently invented by
Joseph Henry
Joseph Henry (December 17, 1797– May 13, 1878) was an American scientist who served as the first Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. He was the secretary for the National Institute for the Promotion of Science, a precursor of the Smith ...
the following year.
* 1834:
Moritz von Jacobi
Moritz Hermann or Boris Semyonovich (von) Jacobi (russian: Борис Семёнович Якоби; 21 September 1801, Potsdam – 10 March 1874, Saint Petersburg) was a Prussian and Russian Imperial engineer and physicist of Jewish descent. Jac ...
invents the first practical
electric motor
An electric motor is an Electric machine, electrical machine that converts electrical energy into mechanical energy. Most electric motors operate through the interaction between the motor's magnetic field and electric current in a Electromagneti ...
.
* 1835:
Joseph Henry
Joseph Henry (December 17, 1797– May 13, 1878) was an American scientist who served as the first Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. He was the secretary for the National Institute for the Promotion of Science, a precursor of the Smith ...
invents the electromechanical
relay
A relay
Electromechanical relay schematic showing a control coil, four pairs of normally open and one pair of normally closed contacts
An automotive-style miniature relay with the dust cover taken off
A relay is an electrically operated switch ...
.
* 1837:
Samuel Morse
Samuel Finley Breese Morse (April 27, 1791 – April 2, 1872) was an American inventor and painter. After having established his reputation as a portrait painter, in his middle age Morse contributed to the invention of a single-wire telegraph ...
invents
Morse code
Morse code is a method used in telecommunication to encode text characters as standardized sequences of two different signal durations, called ''dots'' and ''dashes'', or ''dits'' and ''dahs''. Morse code is named after Samuel Morse, one of ...
.
* 1838:
Moritz von Jacobi
Moritz Hermann or Boris Semyonovich (von) Jacobi (russian: Борис Семёнович Якоби; 21 September 1801, Potsdam – 10 March 1874, Saint Petersburg) was a Prussian and Russian Imperial engineer and physicist of Jewish descent. Jac ...
invents
electrotyping
Electrotyping (also galvanoplasty) is a chemical method for forming metal parts that exactly reproduce a model. The method was invented by Moritz von Jacobi
Moritz Hermann or Boris Semyonovich (von) Jacobi (russian: Борис Семёнови ...
.
* 1839:
William Otis
William Smith Otis (September 20, 1813 – November 13, 1839) was an American inventor of the steam shovel. Otis received a patent for his creation on February 24, 1839.
In 1839 William Smith Otis, civil engineer of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, ...
invents the
steam shovel
A steam shovel is a large steam-powered excavating machine designed for lifting and moving material such as rock and soil. It is the earliest type of power shovel or excavator. Steam shovels played a major role in public works in the 19th and e ...
.
* 1839:
James Nasmyth
James Hall Nasmyth (sometimes spelled Naesmyth, Nasmith, or Nesmyth) (19 August 1808 – 7 May 1890) was a Scottish engineer, philosopher, artist and inventor famous for his development of the steam hammer. He was the co-founder of Nasmyth, ...
invents the
steam hammer
A steam hammer, also called a drop hammer, is an industrial power hammer driven by steam that is used for tasks such as shaping forgings and driving piles. Typically the hammer is attached to a piston that slides within a fixed cylinder, but i ...
photovoltaic effect
The photovoltaic effect is the generation of voltage and electric current in a material upon exposure to light. It is a physical property, physical and chemical phenomenon.
The photovoltaic effect is closely related to the photoelectric effect. F ...
, effectively producing the first
solar cell
A solar cell, or photovoltaic cell, is an electronic device that converts the energy of light directly into electricity by the photovoltaic effect, which is a physical and chemical phenomenon.
.
1840s
* 1841: Alexander Bain devises a printing telegraph.
* 1842:
William Robert Grove
Sir William Robert Grove, FRS FRSE (11 July 1811 – 1 August 1896) was a Welsh judge and physical scientist. He anticipated the general theory of the conservation of energy, and was a pioneer of fuel cell technology. He invented the Grove voltai ...
invents the first
fuel cell
A fuel cell is an electrochemical cell that converts the chemical energy of a fuel (often hydrogen) and an oxidizing agent (often oxygen) into electricity through a pair of redox reactions. Fuel cells are different from most batteries in requ ...
.
* 1842:
John Bennet Lawes
Sir John Bennet Lawes, 1st Baronet, FRS (28 December 1814 – 31 August 1900) was an English entrepreneur and agricultural scientist. He founded an experimental farm at his home at Rothamsted Manor that eventually became Rothamsted Research, ...
invents
superphosphate Triple superphosphate is a component of fertilizer that primarily consists of monocalcium phosphate, Ca(H2PO4)2. Triple superphosphate is obtained by treating phosphate rock with phosphoric acid. Traditional routes for extraction of phosphate rock ...
, the first man-made
fertilizer
A fertilizer (American English) or fertiliser (British English; see spelling differences) is any material of natural or synthetic origin that is applied to soil or to plant tissues to supply plant nutrients. Fertilizers may be distinct from ...
.
* 1844:
Friedrich Gottlob Keller
Friedrich Gottlob Keller (born 27 June 1816 in Hainichen, Saxony; died 8 September 1895 in Krippen, Saxony) was a German machinist and invention, inventor, who (at the same time as Charles Fenerty) invented the pulp (paper), wood pulp process for u ...
and, independently,
Charles Fenerty
Charles Fenerty (January 1821 – 10 June 1892), was a Canadian inventor who invented the wood pulp process for papermaking, which was first adapted into the production of newsprint. Fenerty was also a poet (writing over 32 known poems).
Early ...
come up with the wood pulp method of paper production.
* 1845:
Isaac Charles Johnson
Isaac Charles Johnson (28 January 1811 – 29 November 1911) was a British cement manufacturer, and a pioneer of the Portland cement industry.
Born in London, his father was a charge-hand at Francis & White's "Roman Cement" plant in Nine Elms. ...
invents modern
Portland cement
Portland cement is the most common type of cement in general use around the world as a basic ingredient of concrete, mortar, stucco, and non-specialty grout. It was developed from other types of hydraulic lime in England in the early 19th c ...
.
* 1846: Henri-Joseph Maus invents the
tunnel boring machine
A tunnel boring machine (TBM), also known as a "mole", is a machine used to excavate tunnels with a circular cross section through a variety of soil and rock strata. They may also be used for microtunneling. They can be designed to bore throu ...
.
* 1847:
Ascanio Sobrero
Ascanio Sobrero (12 October 1812 – 26 May 1888) was an Italian chemist, born in Casale Monferrato. He was studying under Théophile-Jules Pelouze at the University of Turin, who had worked with the explosive material guncotton.
He studied me ...
invents
Nitroglycerin
Nitroglycerin (NG), (alternative spelling of nitroglycerine) also known as trinitroglycerin (TNG), nitro, glyceryl trinitrate (GTN), or 1,2,3-trinitroxypropane, is a dense, colorless, oily, explosive liquid most commonly produced by nitrating g ...
, the first explosive made that was stronger than
black powder
Gunpowder, also commonly known as black powder to distinguish it from modern smokeless powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It consists of a mixture of sulfur, carbon (in the form of charcoal) and potassium nitrate (saltpeter). Th ...
.
* 1848: Jonathan J. Couch invents the
pneumatic drill A pneumatic drill may refer to a:
*Jackhammer, a tool used to break up rock and pavement
*Drill
A drill is a tool used for making round holes or driving fasteners. It is fitted with a bit, either a drill or driver chuck. Hand-operated types ...
pin tumbler lock
The pin tumbler lock is a lock mechanism that uses pins of varying lengths to prevent the lock from opening without the correct key. Pin tumblers are most commonly employed in cylinder locks, but may also be found in tubular pin tumbler locks (als ...
repeating rifle A repeating rifle is a single- barreled rifle capable of repeated discharges between each ammunition reloads. This is typically achieved by having multiple cartridges stored in a magazine (within or attached to the gun) and then fed individually i ...
to use metallic cartridges (of his own design) and a spring-fed magazine.
* 1849:
James B. Francis
James Bicheno Francis (May 18, 1815 – September 18, 1892) was a British-American civil engineer, who invented the Francis turbine.
Early years
James Francis was born in South Leigh, near Witney, Oxfordshire, in England, United Kingdom. ...
invents the
Francis turbine
The Francis turbine is a type of water turbine. It is an inward-flow reaction turbine that combines radial and axial flow concepts. Francis turbines are the most common water turbine in use today, and can achieve over 95% efficiency.
The proces ...
hydraulic accumulator
A hydraulic accumulator is a pressure storage reservoir in which an incompressible hydraulic fluid is held under pressure that is applied by an external source of mechanical energy. The external source can be an engine, a spring, a raised weight, ...
.
* 1851:
George Jennings
George Jennings (10 November 1810 – 17 April 1882) was an English sanitary engineer and plumber who invented the first public flush toilets.
Josiah George Jennings was born on 10 November 1810 in Eling, at the edge of the New Forest in Hamp ...
offers the first public flush toilets, accessible for a penny per visit, and in 1852 receives a UK patent for the single piece, free standing, earthenware, trap plumed, flushing, water-closet.
* 1852:
Robert Bunsen
Robert Wilhelm Eberhard Bunsen (;
30 March 1811
– 16 August 1899) was a German chemist. He investigated emission spectra of heated elements, and discovered caesium (in 1860) and rubidium (in 1861) with the physicist Gustav Kirchhoff. The Bu ...
is the first to use a
chemical vapor deposition
Chemical vapor deposition (CVD) is a vacuum deposition method used to produce high quality, and high-performance, solid materials. The process is often used in the semiconductor industry to produce thin films.
In typical CVD, the wafer (substra ...
technique.
* 1852:
Elisha Otis
Elisha Graves Otis (August 3, 1811 – April 8, 1861) was an American industrialist, founder of the Otis Elevator Company, and inventor of a safety device that prevents elevators from falling if the hoisting cable fails.
Early years
Otis was b ...
invents the safety brake elevator.
* 1852:
Henri Giffard
Baptiste Jules Henri Jacques Giffard (8 February 182514 April 1882) was a French engineer. In 1852 he invented the steam injector and the powered Giffard dirigible airship.
Career
Giffard was born in Paris in 1825. He invented the injector an ...
becomes the first person to make a manned, controlled and powered flight using a
dirigible
An airship or dirigible balloon is a type of aerostat or lighter-than-air aircraft that can navigate through the air under its own power. Aerostats gain their lift from a lifting gas that is less dense than the surrounding air.
In early ...
.
* 1853:
François Coignet
François Coignet (10 February 1814 – 30 October 1888) was a French industrialist and a pioneer in the development of reinforced concrete as the first person to use iron-reinforced concrete to construct buildings.Day, p. 284
Biography
Coign ...
invents
reinforced concrete
Reinforced concrete (RC), also called reinforced cement concrete (RCC) and ferroconcrete, is a composite material in which concrete's relatively low tensile strength and ductility are compensated for by the inclusion of reinforcement having hig ...
.
* 1855:
James Clerk Maxwell
James Clerk Maxwell (13 June 1831 – 5 November 1879) was a Scottish mathematician and scientist responsible for the classical theory of electromagnetic radiation, which was the first theory to describe electricity, magnetism and ligh ...
invents the first practical method for
color photography
Color photography is photography that uses media capable of capturing and reproducing colors. By contrast, black-and-white or gray-monochrome photography records only a single channel of luminance (brightness) and uses media capable only of ...
, whether chemical or electronic.
* 1855:
Henry Bessemer
Sir Henry Bessemer (19 January 1813 – 15 March 1898) was an English inventor, whose steel-making process would become the most important technique for making steel in the nineteenth century for almost one hundred years from 1856 to 1950. He ...
patents the
Bessemer process
The Bessemer process was the first inexpensive industrial process for the mass production of steel from molten pig iron before the development of the open hearth furnace. The key principle is removal of impurities from the iron by oxidation ...
for making steel, with improvements made by others over the following years.
* 1856:
Alexander Parkes
Alexander Parkes (29 December 1813 29 June 1890) was a metallurgist and inventor from Birmingham, England. He created Parkesine, the first man-made plastic.
Biography
The son of a manufacturer of brass locks, Parkes was apprenticed to Messenger ...
invents
parkesine
Celluloids are a class of materials produced by mixing nitrocellulose and camphor, often with added dyes and other agents. Once much more common for its use as photographic film before the advent of safer methods, celluloid's common contemporar ...
, also known as
celluloid
Celluloids are a class of materials produced by mixing nitrocellulose and camphor, often with added dyes and other agents. Once much more common for its use as photographic film before the advent of safer methods, celluloid's common contemporar ...
, the first man-made
plastic
Plastics are a wide range of synthetic or semi-synthetic materials that use polymers as a main ingredient. Their plasticity makes it possible for plastics to be moulded, extruded or pressed into solid objects of various shapes. This adaptab ...
.
* 1856: James Harrison produces the world's first practical ice making machine and refrigerator using the principle of vapour compression in Geelong, Australia.
* 1856:
William Henry Perkin
Sir William Henry Perkin (12 March 1838 – 14 July 1907) was a British chemist and entrepreneur best known for his serendipitous discovery of the first commercial synthetic organic dye, mauveine, made from aniline. Though he failed in trying ...
invents
mauveine
Mauveine, also known as aniline purple and Perkin's mauve, was one of the first synthetic dyes. It was discovered serendipitously by William Henry Perkin in 1856 while he was attempting to synthesise the phytochemical quinine for the treatment of ...
, the first
synthetic dye
A dye is a colored substance that chemically bonds to the substrate to which it is being applied. This distinguishes dyes from pigments which do not chemically bind to the material they color. Dye is generally applied in an aqueous solution and ...
.
* 1857:
Heinrich Geissler Heinrich may refer to:
People
* Heinrich (given name), a given name (including a list of people with the name)
* Heinrich (surname), a surname (including a list of people with the name)
*Hetty (given name), a given name (including a list of peo ...
invents the
Geissler tube
A Geissler tube is an early gas discharge tube used to demonstrate the principles of electrical glow discharge, similar to modern neon lighting. The tube was invented by the German physicist and glassblower Heinrich Geissler in 1857. It consist ...
.
* 1859:
Gaston Planté
Gaston Planté (22 April 1834 – 21 May 1889) was a French physicist who invented the lead–acid battery in 1859. This type battery was developed as the first rechargeable electric battery marketed for commercial use and it is widely used in aut ...
invents the
lead acid battery
Lead is a chemical element with the symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cut, le ...
, the first
rechargeable battery
A rechargeable battery, storage battery, or secondary cell (formally a type of Accumulator (energy), energy accumulator), is a type of electrical battery which can be charged, discharged into a load, and recharged many times, as opposed to ...
.
1860s
* 1860:
Joseph Swan
Sir Joseph Wilson Swan FRS (31 October 1828 – 27 May 1914) was an English physicist, chemist, and inventor. He is known as an independent early developer of a successful incandescent light bulb, and is the person responsible for develop ...
produces
carbon fibers
Carbon fibers or carbon fibres (alternatively CF, graphite fiber or graphite fibre) are fibers about in diameter and composed mostly of carbon atoms. Carbon fibers have several advantages: high stiffness, high tensile strength, high stren ...
.
* 1864:
Louis Pasteur
Louis Pasteur (, ; 27 December 1822 – 28 September 1895) was a French chemist and microbiologist renowned for his discoveries of the principles of vaccination, microbial fermentation and pasteurization, the latter of which was named afte ...
invents the
pasteurization
Pasteurization or pasteurisation is a process of food preservation in which packaged and non-packaged foods (such as milk and fruit juices) are treated with mild heat, usually to less than , to eliminate pathogens and extend shelf life.
The ...
process.
* 1865:
Carl Wilhelm Siemens
Sir Carl Wilhelm Siemens (4 April 1823 – 19 November 1883), anglicised to Charles William Siemens, was a German-British electrical engineer and businessman.
Biography
Siemens was born in the village of Lenthe, today part of Gehrden, near Han ...
and
Pierre-Émile Martin
Pierre-Émile Martin (; 18 August 1824, Bourges, Cher – 23 May 1915, Fourchambault) was a French industrial engineer. He applied the principle of recovery of the hot gas in an open hearth furnace, a process invented by Carl Wilhelm Siemens.
I ...
invented the Siemens-Martin process for making steel.
* 1867:
Alfred Nobel
Alfred Bernhard Nobel ( , ; 21 October 1833 – 10 December 1896) was a Swedes, Swedish chemist, engineer, inventor, businessman, and Philanthropy, philanthropist. He is best known for having bequeathed his fortune to establish the Nobel ...
invents
dynamite
Dynamite is an explosive made of nitroglycerin, sorbents (such as powdered shells or clay), and Stabilizer (chemistry), stabilizers. It was invented by the Swedish people, Swedish chemist and engineer Alfred Nobel in Geesthacht, Northern Germa ...
, the first safely manageable explosive stronger than
black powder
Gunpowder, also commonly known as black powder to distinguish it from modern smokeless powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It consists of a mixture of sulfur, carbon (in the form of charcoal) and potassium nitrate (saltpeter). Th ...
.
* 1867: Lucien B. Smith invents
barbed wire
A close-up view of a barbed wire
Roll of modern agricultural barbed wire
Barbed wire, also known as barb wire, is a type of steel fencing wire constructed with sharp edges or points arranged at intervals along the strands. Its primary use is t ...
, which Joseph F. Glidden will modify in 1874, leading to the taming of the West and the end of the cowboys.
1870s
* 1872: J.E.T. Woods and J. Clark invented
stainless steel
Stainless steel is an alloy of iron that is resistant to rusting and corrosion. It contains at least 11% chromium and may contain elements such as carbon, other nonmetals and metals to obtain other desired properties. Stainless steel's corros ...
.
Harry Brearley
Harry Brearley (18 February 1871 – 14 July 1948)
was an English metallurgist, credited with the invention of "rustless steel" (later to be called "stainless steel" in the anglophone world). Based in Sheffield, his invention brought affordabl ...
was the first to commercialize it.
* 1873:
Frederick Ransome
Frederick Ransome (1818–1893) was a British inventor and industrialist, creator of Ransome's artificial stone.
Frederick was the son of James Ransome, 1782–1849, a member of the Ransomes steel and agricultural equipment-making family of Ip ...
invents the
rotary kiln
A rotary kiln is a pyroprocessing device used to raise materials to a high temperature (calcination) in a continuous process. Materials produced using rotary kilns include:
* Cement
* Lime
* Refractories
* Metakaolin
* Titanium dioxide
* Alum ...
.
* 1873:
William Crookes
Sir William Crookes (; 17 June 1832 – 4 April 1919) was a British chemist and physicist who attended the Royal College of Chemistry, now part of Imperial College London, and worked on spectroscopy. He was a pioneer of vacuum tubes, inventing t ...
, a chemist, invents the
Crookes radiometer
The Crookes radiometer (also known as a light mill) consists of an airtight glass bulb containing a partial vacuum, with a set of vanes which are mounted on a spindle inside. The vanes rotate when exposed to light, with faster rotation for more i ...
as the by-product of some chemical research.
* 1873:
Zénobe Gramme
Zénobe Théophile Gramme (4 April 1826 – 20 January 1901) was a Belgian electrical engineer. He was born at Jehay-Bodegnée on 4 April 1826, the sixth child of Mathieu-Joseph Gramme, and died at Bois-Colombes on 20 January 1901. He invented ...
invents the first commercial
electrical generator
In electricity generation, a generator is a device that converts motive power (mechanical energy) or fuel-based power (chemical energy) into electric power for use in an external circuit. Sources of mechanical energy include steam turbines, gas ...
, the
Gramme machine
A Gramme machine, Gramme ring, Gramme magneto, or Gramme dynamo is an electrical generator that produces direct current, named for its Belgian inventor, Zénobe Gramme, and was built as either a dynamo or a magneto. It was the first generator to p ...
.
* 1874:
Gustave Trouvé
Gustave Pierre Trouvé (2 January 1839 – 27 July 1902) was a French electrical engineer and inventor in the 19th century.
Trouvé was born on 2 January 1839 in La Haye-Descartes (Indre-et-Loire, France) and died on 27 July 1902 in Paris. A pol ...
invents the first
metal detector
A metal detector is an instrument that detects the nearby presence of metal. Metal detectors are useful for finding metal objects on the surface, underground, and under water. The unit itself, consist of a control box, and an adjustable shaft, ...
.
* 1875:
Fyodor Pirotsky
Fyodor Apollonovich Pirotsky or Fedir Apollonovych Pirotskyy ( ukr, Федір Аполлонович Піроцький; russian: Фёдор Аполлонович Пироцкий; -) was a Ukrainian engineer and inventor of the world's first ra ...
invents the first
electric tram
A tram (called a streetcar or trolley in North America) is a rail vehicle that travels on tramway tracks on public urban streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or networks operated as public transport are ...
near
Saint Petersburg, Russia
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
.
* 1876:
Nicolaus August Otto
Nicolaus August Otto (10 June 1832, Holzhausen an der Haide, Nassau – 26 January 1891, Cologne) was a German engineer who successfully developed the compressed charge internal combustion engine which ran on petroleum gas and led to the mode ...
invents the
four-stroke cycle
A four-stroke (also four-cycle) engine is an internal combustion (IC) engine in which the piston completes four separate strokes while turning the crankshaft. A stroke refers to the full travel of the piston along the cylinder, in either directi ...
.
* 1876:
Alexander Graham Bell
Alexander Graham Bell (, born Alexander Bell; March 3, 1847 – August 2, 1922) was a Scottish-born inventor, scientist and engineer who is credited with patenting the first practical telephone. He also co-founded the American Telephone and Te ...
has a patent granted for the
telephone
A telephone is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into e ...
. However, other inventors before Bell had worked on the development of the telephone and the invention had several pioneers.
* 1877:
Thomas Edison
Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventio ...
invents the first working
phonograph
A phonograph, in its later forms also called a gramophone (as a trademark since 1887, as a generic name in the UK since 1910) or since the 1940s called a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogu ...
.
* 1878:
Henry Fleuss
Henry Albert Fleuss (13 June 1851 – 6 January 1933) was a pioneering diving engineer, and Master Diver for Siebe, Gorman & Co. of London.
Fleuss was born in Marlborough, Wiltshire in 1851.
In 1878 he was granted a patent which improved rebr ...
is granted a patent for the first practical
rebreather
A rebreather is a breathing apparatus that absorbs the carbon dioxide of a user's breathing, exhaled breath to permit the rebreathing (recycling) of the substantially unused oxygen content, and unused inert content when present, of each breath. ...
.
* 1878:
Lester Allan Pelton
Lester Allan Pelton (September 5, 1829 – March 14, 1908) was an American inventor who contributed significantly to the development of hydroelectricity and hydropower in the American Old West as well as world-wide. In the late 1870s, he invented ...
invents the
Pelton wheel
The Pelton wheel or Pelton Turbine is an impulse-type water turbine invented by American inventor Lester Allan Pelton in the 1870s. The Pelton wheel extracts energy from the impulse of moving water, as opposed to water's dead weight like the trad ...
.
* 1879:
Joseph Swan
Sir Joseph Wilson Swan FRS (31 October 1828 – 27 May 1914) was an English physicist, chemist, and inventor. He is known as an independent early developer of a successful incandescent light bulb, and is the person responsible for develop ...
and
Thomas Edison
Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventio ...
both patent a functional
incandescent light bulb
An incandescent light bulb, incandescent lamp or incandescent light globe is an electric light with a wire filament heated until it glows. The filament is enclosed in a glass bulb with a vacuum or inert gas to protect the filament from oxida ...
. Some two dozen inventors had experimented with electric incandescent lighting over the first three-quarters of the 19th century but never came up with a practical design. Swan's, which he had been working on since the 1860s, had a low resistance so was only suited for small installations. Edison designed a high-resistance bulb as part of a large-scale commercial electric lighting utility.
1880s
* 1881:
Nikolay Benardos
Nikolay Nikolayevich Benardos (russian: Никола́й Никола́евич Бенардо́с) (1842–1905) was a Russian inventor of Greeks, Greek origin who in 1881 introduced carbon arc welding, which was the first practical arc welding ...
presents
carbon arc welding Carbon arc welding (CAW) is a process which produces coalescence of metals by heating them with an arc between a non-consumable carbon (graphite) electrode and the work-piece. It was the first arc-welding process developed but is not used for many ...
, the first practical
arc welding
Arc welding is a welding process that is used to join metal to metal by using electricity to create enough heat to melt metal, and the melted metals, when cool, result in a binding of the metals. It is a type of welding that uses a welding powe ...
method.
* 1884:
Hiram Maxim
Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim (5 February 1840 – 24 November 1916) was an American-British inventor best known as the creator of the first automatic machine gun, the Maxim gun. Maxim held patents on numerous mechanical devices such as hair-curl ...
invents the
recoil-operated
Recoil operation is an operating mechanism used to implement locked breech, autoloading firearms. Recoil operated firearms use the energy of recoil to cycle the action, as opposed to gas operation or blowback operation using the pressure of the p ...
Maxim gun
The Maxim gun is a recoil-operated machine gun invented in 1884 by Hiram Stevens Maxim. It was the first fully automatic machine gun in the world.
The Maxim gun has been called "the weapon most associated with imperial conquest" by historian M ...
, ushering in the age of semi- and fully automatic firearms.
* 1884:
Paul Vieille
Paul may refer to:
*Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name)
* Paul (surname), a list of people
People
Christianity
*Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Chri ...
invents
Poudre B
Poudre B was the first practical smokeless gunpowder created in 1884. It was perfected between 1882 and 1884 at "Laboratoire Central des Poudres et Salpêtres" in Paris, France. Originally called "Poudre V" from the name of the inventor, Paul Vi ...
, the first
smokeless powder
Finnish smokeless powderSmokeless powder is a type of propellant used in firearms and artillery that produces less smoke and less fouling when fired compared to gunpowder ("black powder"). The combustion products are mainly gaseous, compared to a ...
for firearms.
* 1884: Sir Charles Parsons invents the modern
steam turbine
A steam turbine is a machine that extracts thermal energy from pressurized steam and uses it to do mechanical work on a rotating output shaft. Its modern manifestation was invented by Charles Parsons in 1884. Fabrication of a modern steam tu ...
.
* 1884: Hungarian engineers
Károly Zipernowsky
Károly Zipernowsky (born as Carl Zipernowsky, 4 April 1853 in Vienna – 29 November 1942 in Budapest) was an Austrian-born Hungarian electrical engineer. He invented the transformer with his colleagues (Miksa Déri and Ottó Bláthy) at t ...
, Ottó Bláthy and Miksa Déri invent the closed core high efficiency transformer and the AC parallel power distribution.
* 1885: John Kemp Starley invents the modern safety bicycle.
* 1886: Carl Gassner invents the zinc–carbon battery, the first dry cell, dry cell battery, making portable electronics practical.
* 1886: Charles Martin Hall and independently Paul Héroult invent the Hall–Héroult process for economically producing aluminum in 1886.
* 1886: Karl Benz invents the first petrol or gasoline powered auto-mobile (car).
* 1887: Carl Josef Bayer invents the Bayer process for the production of alumina.
* 1887: James Blyth (engineer), James Blyth invents the first wind turbine used for generating electricity.
* 1887: John Stewart MacArthur, working in collaboration with brothers Dr. Robert and Dr. William Forrest develops the process of gold cyanidation.
* 1888: John J. Loud invents the ballpoint pen.
* 1888: Heinrich Hertz publishes a conclusive proof of
James Clerk Maxwell
James Clerk Maxwell (13 June 1831 – 5 November 1879) was a Scottish mathematician and scientist responsible for the classical theory of electromagnetic radiation, which was the first theory to describe electricity, magnetism and ligh ...
's electromagnetic theory in experiments that also demonstrate the existence of radio waves. The effects of electromagnetic waves had been observed by many people before this but no usable theory explaining them existed until Maxwell.
1890s
* 1890s: Frédéric Swarts invents the first chlorofluorocarbons to be applied as refrigerant.
* 1890: Robert Gair would invent the pre-cut cardboard box.
* 1891: Whitcomb Judson invents the zipper.
* 1892: Léon Bouly invents the cinematograph.
* 1892: Thomas Ahearn invents the Electric stove, electric oven.
* 1893: Rudolf Diesel invents the diesel engine (although Herbert Akroyd Stuart had experimented with compression ignition before Diesel).
* 1895: Guglielmo Marconi invents a system of wireless communication using radio waves.
* 1895: Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen invented the first radiograph (xrays).
* 1898: Hans von Pechmann synthesizes polyethylene, now the most common
plastic
Plastics are a wide range of synthetic or semi-synthetic materials that use polymers as a main ingredient. Their plasticity makes it possible for plastics to be moulded, extruded or pressed into solid objects of various shapes. This adaptab ...
in the world.
* 1899: Waldemar Jungner invents the rechargeable nickel-cadmium battery (NiCd) as well as the nickel-iron battery, nickel-iron electric storage battery (NiFe) and the rechargeable alkaline silver-cadmium battery (AgCd)
20th century
1900s
* 1900: The first Zeppelin is designed by Theodor Kober.
* 1901: The first motorized cleaner using suction, a powered "vacuum cleaner", is patented independently by Hubert Cecil Booth and David T. Kenney.
* 1903: The first successful gas turbine is invented by Ægidius Elling.
* 1903: Édouard Bénédictus invents laminated glass.
* 1903: First sustained and controlled heavier-than-air powered flight achieved by an airplane flown at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina by Orville and Wilbur Wright. See Claims to the first powered flight.
* 1904: The Fleming valve, the first vacuum tube and diode, is invented by John Ambrose Fleming.
* 1907: The first free flight of a rotary-wing aircraft is carried out by Paul Cornu.
* 1907: Leo Baekeland invents bakelite, the first
plastic
Plastics are a wide range of synthetic or semi-synthetic materials that use polymers as a main ingredient. Their plasticity makes it possible for plastics to be moulded, extruded or pressed into solid objects of various shapes. This adaptab ...
made from synthetic components.
*1907 (at some time during the year), the tuyères thermopropulsivesPeter O. K. Krehl (24 Sep 2008 History of Shock Waves, Explosions and Impact: A Chronological and Biographical Reference p.443 Springer Science & Business Media, , , accessed 7 July 2019 after 1945 (:fr:Maurice Roy (professeur), Maurice Roy (fr)) known as the ''statoreacteur'' ''a combustion subsonique'' (the ramjet) – René Lorin, R. LorinLorin, René (1877–1933) Digital Mechanism and Gear Library first contact for: "1913 – Lorin" (Margaret Connor) obtained via search criteria (google) "discovery of scramjet Frank Whittle" accessed 7 July 2019
* 1908: Cellophane is invented by Jacques E. Brandenberger.
* 1909: Fritz Haber invents the Haber process.
* 1909: The first instantaneous transmission of images, or television broadcast, is carried out by Georges Rignoux and A. Fournier.
1910s
* 1911: The cloud chamber, the first particle detector, is invented by Charles Thomson Rees Wilson.
* 1912: The first commercial slot cars or more accurately model electric racing cars operating under constant power were made by Lionel (USA) and appeared in their catalogues in 1912. They drew power from a toy train rail sunk in a trough that was connected to a battery.
* 1912: The first use of articulated trams by Boston Elevated Railway, Boston Elevated Railway.
* 1913: The Bergius process is developed by Friedrich Bergius.
* 1913: The Kaplan turbine is invented by Viktor Kaplan.
* 1915:
Harry Brearley
Harry Brearley (18 February 1871 – 14 July 1948)
was an English metallurgist, credited with the invention of "rustless steel" (later to be called "stainless steel" in the anglophone world). Based in Sheffield, his invention brought affordabl ...
invents a process to create Martensitic stainless steel, initially labelled Rustless Steel, later marketed as Staybrite, and AISI Type 420.
* 1915: The first operational military tanks are designed in Great Britain and France. They are used in battle from 1916 and 1917 respectively. The designers are Walter Gordon Wilson, Walter Wilson and William Tritton; and, independently, Eugène Brillié. (Although it is known that vehicles incorporating at least some of the features of the tank were designed in a number of countries from 1903 onward, none reached a practical form.)
* 1916: The Czochralski process, widely used for the production of single crystal silicon, is invented by Jan Czochralski.
* 1917: The crystal oscillator is invented by Alexander M. Nicholson using a crystal of Rochelle Salt although his priority was disputed by Walter Guyton Cady.
1920s
* 1925: The Fischer–Tropsch process is developed by Franz Joseph Emil Fischer, Franz Fischer and Hans Tropsch at the Max Planck Institute for Coal Research, Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut für Kohlenforschung.
* 1926: The Yagi-Uda Antenna or simply Yagi Antenna is invented by Shintaro Uda of Tohoku Imperial University, assisted by his colleague Hidetsugu Yagi. The Yagi Antenna was widely used during World War II. After the war they saw extensive development as home television antennas.
* 1926: Robert H. Goddard launches the first Bipropellant rocket, liquid fueled rocket.
* 1926: Harry Ferguson, patents the Three-point hitch equipment linkage system for tractors.
* 1926: John Logie Baird demonstrates the world's first live working Mechanical television, television system.
* 1927: The quartz clock is invented by Warren Marrison and J.W. Horton at Bell Telephone Laboratories.
* 1928: Penicillin is first observed to exude antibiotic substances by Nobel laureate Alexander Fleming. Development of medicinal penicillin is attributed to a team of medics and scientists including Howard Walter Florey, Ernst Chain and Norman Heatley.
* 1928: Frank Whittle formally submitted his ideas for a turbo-jet engine. In October 1929, he developed his ideas further. On 16 January 1930, Whittle submitted his first patent (granted in 1932).Current affairs, science and technology notes ClearIAS accessed 7 July 2019
* 1928: Philo Farnsworth demonstrates the first practical electronic television to the press.
* 1929: The ball screw is invented by Rudolph G. Boehm.
1930s
* 1930: The Supersonic combusting ramjet — Frank Whittle.
* 1930: The Phase-contrast microscopy is invented by Frits Zernike.
* 1931: The electron microscope is invented by Ernst Ruska.
* 1933: FM radio is patented by inventor Edwin H. Armstrong.
* 1935: Nylon, the first fully synthetic fiber is produced by Wallace Carothers while working at DuPont.
* 1938: Z1 (computer), Z1, built by Konrad Zuse, is the first freely programmable computer in the world.
* 1938: Nuclear fission discovered in experiment by chemists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann and physicists Lise Meitner and Otto Robert Frisch. The German nuclear energy project was based on this research. The Tube Alloys project and, subsequently, the Manhattan Project and the Soviet atomic bomb project were influenced by this research.
* 1939: G. S. Yunyev or Naum Gurvich invented the electric current Defibrillation#Direct current method, defibrillator
1940s
*1940: Isotopes of plutonium#Notable isotopes, Pu-239 isotope (isotope of plutonium)The Technology of Nuclear Weapons Arms Control Association, accessed 9 January 2020Plutonium 239 EDP-Sciences (EDITIONS DE PHYSIQUE) (& the Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et Physique des Particules (IN2P3) accessed 9 January 2020 a form of matter existing with the capacity for use as a destructive element (because the isotope has an exponentially increasing spontaneous spontaneous fission, fissile decay) within nuclear devices — Glenn Seaborg.
* 1940: John Randall (physicist), John Randall and Harry Boot would develop the high power, microwave generating, cavity magnetron, later applied to commercial Radar and Microwave oven appliances.
* 1941: Polyester is invented by John Whinfield and James Dickson.
* 1942: The V-2 rocket, the world's first long range ballistic missile, developed by engineer Wernher von Braun.
*1944: The non-infectious viral vaccine is perfected by Dr. Jonas Salk and Thomas Francis.
* 1945: The atomic bomb is developed by the Manhattan Project and swiftly deployed in August 1945 in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, effectively ending World War II.
* 1945: Percy Spencer, while employed at Raytheon, would patent a magnetron based microwave oven.
* 1946: James Martin (engineer), James Martin invents the ejector seat, inspired by the death of his friend and test pilot Captain Valentine Baker (pilot), Valentine Baker in an aeroplane crash in 1942.
* 1947: Holography is invented by Dennis Gabor.
* 1947: Floyd Farris and J.B. Clark (Stanolind Oil and Gas Corporation) invents hydraulic fracturing technology.
* 1947: The first transistor, a bipolar point-contact transistor, is invented by John Bardeen and Walter Brattain under the supervision of William Shockley at Bell Labs.
* 1948: The first atomic clock is developed at the National Bureau of Standards.
* 1948: Basic oxygen steelmaking is developed by Robert Durrer. The vast majority of steel manufactured in the world is produced using the basic oxygen furnace; in 2000, it accounted for 60% of global steel output.Smil, pp. 97-98.
1950s
*1950: ''Bertie the Brain'', debatably the first video game, is displayed to the public at the Canadian National Exhibition.
*1950: The Toroidal chamber with axial magnetic fields (the Tokamak) is developed by Igor E. Tamm and Andrei D. Sakharov.
* 1952: The Float glass, float glass process is developed by Alastair Pilkington.
* 1951: First use of nuclear power to produce electricity for households in Arco, Idaho.Experimental Breeder Reactor 1 factsheet Idaho National Laboratory
* 1952: The first thermonuclear weapon is developed.
* 1953: The first video tape recorder, a helical scan recorder, is invented by Norikazu Sawazaki.
* 1954: Invention of the solar battery by Bell Telephone scientists, Calvin Souther Fuller, Daryl Chapin and Gerald Pearson capturing the sun's power. First practical means of collecting energy from the sun and turning it into a current of electricity.
* 1955: The hovercraft is patented by Christopher Cockerell.
* 1955: The intermodal container is developed by Malcom McLean.
* 1956: The hard disk drive is invented by IBM.
*1957: The laser and optical amplifier are invented and named by Gordon Gould and Charles H. Townes, Charles Townes. The laser and optical amplifier are foundational to powering the Internet.
* 1957: The first personal computer used by one person and controlled by a keyboard, the History of personal computers#The beginnings of the personal computer industry, IBM 610, is invented in 1957 by IBM.
* 1957: The first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, is launched.
* 1958–59: The integrated circuit is Invention of the integrated circuit, independently invented by Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce.
* 1959: The MOSFET (MOS transistor) is invented by the Egyptian Mohamed Atalla and the Korean Dawon Kahng at Bell Labs. It is used in almost all modern electronic products. It was smaller, faster, more reliable and cheaper to manufacture than earlier bipolar transistors, leading to a revolution in computers, controls and communication.
1960s
* 1960: The first functioning laser is invented by Theodore Maiman.
* 1961: The first crewed spaceflight is achieved by Vostok 1.
* 1963: The first electronic cigarette is created by Herbert A. Gilbert. Hon Lik is often credited with its invention as he developed the modern electronic cigarette and was the first to commercialize it.
* 1964: Shinkansen, the first high-speed rail commercial passenger service.
* 1965: Kevlar is invented by Stephanie Kwolek at DuPont.
* 1969: ARPANET#ARPANET deployed, ARPANET and the NPL network implement packet switching, drawing on the concepts and designs of Donald Davies.
1970s
* 1970s: Public-key cryptography is invented and developed by James H. Ellis, Clifford Cocks, Malcolm J. Williamson, Whitfield Diffie, Martin Hellman, Ralph Merkle, Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir, Leonard Adleman, et al.
* 1970: The Calculator#Pocket calculators, pocket calculator is invented.
* 1971: The first single-chip microprocessor, the Intel 4004, is invented. Its development was led by Federico Faggin, using his silicon-gate MOSFET, MOS technology. This led to the personal computer (PC) revolution.
* 1971: The first space station, Salyut 1 is launched.
* 1972: The first video game console, used primarily for playing video games on a TV, is the Magnavox Odyssey."The World's Technological Capacity to Store, Communicate, and Compute Information" Martin Hilbert and Priscila López (2011), Science (journal), Science, 332(6025), 60-65; free access to the article through here martinhilbert.net/WorldInfoCapacity.html
*1973: The first fiber optic communication systems were developed by Optelecom.
*1973: The first commercial graphical user interface is introduced in 1973 on the Xerox Alto. The modern GUI is later popularized by the Xerox Star and Apple Lisa.
* 1973: The first Touchscreen#Capacitive, capacitive touchscreen is developed at CERN.
* 1974: The Transmission Control Program is proposed by Vinton Cerf and Robert E. Kahn, building on the work of Louis Pouzin, creating the basis for the modern Internet.
* 1975: Altair 8800 is the spark that ignited the microcomputer revolution.
*1977: Dr. Walter Gilbert and Frederick Sanger invented a new DNA sequencing method for which they won the Nobel Prize.
* 1977: The first self-driving car that did not rely upon rails or wires under the road is designed by the Tsukuba Mechanical Engineering Laboratory.
* 1978: The Global Positioning System (GPS) enters service. While not the first Satellite navigation system, it is the first to enter widespread civilian use.
* 1979: The first handheld game console with interchangeable game cartridges, the Microvision is released.
* 1979: Public dialup information, messaging and e-commerce services, were pioneered through CompuServe and RadioShack's MicroNET, and the UK's Post Office Telecommunications Prestel services.
1980s
* 1980: Flash memory (both NOR and NAND types) is invented by Fujio Masuoka while working for Toshiba. It is formally introduced to the public in 1984.
* 1981: The first reusable spacecraft, the Space Shuttle undergoes test flights ahead of full operation in 1982.
* 1981: Kane Kramer develops the credit card sized, IXI Portable media player, digital media player.
* 1982: A CD-ROM contains Computer data storage, data accessible to, but not writable by, a computer for data storage and music playback. The 1985 ''Yellow Book'' standard developed by Sony and Philips adapted the format to hold any form of Binary file, binary data.
* 1982: Direct to home satellite television transmission, with the launch of Sky One service.
* 1982: The first laptop computer is launched, the 8/16-bit Epson HX-20.
* 1983: Stereolithography is invented by Chuck Hull.
* 1984: The first commercially available cell phone, the Motorola DynaTAC, DynaTAC 8000X, is created by Motorola.
* 1984: DNA profiling is pioneered by Alec Jeffreys.
* 1985: The lithium-ion battery is invented by John B. Goodenough, Rachid Yazami and Akira Yoshino. It has impacted modern consumer electronics and electric vehicles.
* 1989: Karlheinz Brandenburg would publish the audio compression algorithms that would be standardised as the: MPEG-1, layer 3 (MP3, mp3), and later the MPEG-2, layer 7 Advanced Audio Compression (AAC).
* 1989: The World Wide Web is invented by computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee.
1990s
* 1991: The first commercial flash-based solid-state drive is launched by SunDisk.
* 1994: IBM Simon, World's first smartphone is developed by IBM.
* 1994: First generation of Bluetooth is developed by Ericsson Mobile. A form of data communication on short distances between electronic devices.
* 1995: DVD is an optical disc data storage device, storage format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions.
* 1996: Ciena deploys the first commercial wave division multiplexing system in partnership with Sprint. This created the massive capacity of the internet.
* 1997: The first weblog, a discussion or informational website, is created by Jorn Barger, later shortened to "blog" in 1999 by Peter Merholz.
* 1998: The first portable MP3 player is released by SaeHan Information Systems.
* 1999: The first digital video recorder (DVR), the TiVo, is launched by Xperi.
21st century
2000s
* 2000: Sony develops the first prototypes for the Blu-ray optical disc format. The first prototype player was released in 2004.
* 2000: First documented placement of Geocaching, an outdoor recreational activity, in which participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver or mobile device and other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers, took place on May 3, 2000, by Dave Ulmer of Beavercreek, Oregon.
* 2008: Satoshi Nakamoto develops the first blockchain.
2010s
* 2010: The first solar sail based spacecraft, IKAROS.
* 2010: The first Synthetic biology, synthetic organism, ''Mycoplasma laboratorium'' is created by the J. Craig Venter Institute.
* 2010: ASML Holding, ASML releases the first prototype of an extreme ultraviolet lithography machine.
* 2015: Aquafaba, created by musician Joël Roessel, discovered by when viscous water in which Legume, legume seeds such as Chickpea, chickpeas have been cooked.
* 2019: IBM launches IBM Q System One, its first integrated quantum computing system for commercial use.
2020s
* 2020: The first RNA vaccine to be approved by public health medicines regulators is co-developed by Pfizer and BioNTech for COVID-19.
See also
* Accelerating change
* List of emerging technologies
* List of inventors
* List of years in science
* Outline of prehistoric technology
* Timeline of prehistory
;By type
* History of communication
* Timeline of agriculture and food technology
* Timeline of electrical and electronic engineering
* Timeline of transportation technology
*Timeline of heat engine technology
*Timeline of rocket and missile technology
*Timeline of motor and engine technology
*Timeline of steam power
*Timeline of temperature and pressure measurement technology
*Timeline of mathematics
*Timeline of computing
Notes
Footnotes
References
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