| Date | Invention or discovery | Articles on Explain that stuff |
|---|
| Prehistory | | |
|---|
4–5 billion years ago | Sun starts to produce energy. | Solar cells
Energy
|
~3.5 million years ago
| Humans make the first tools from stone, wood,antlers, and bones.
| Tools and machines
|
1–2 million years ago | Humans discover fire. | Biofuels
Candles
Car engines
Jet engines |
10,000 BCE
| Earliest boats are constructed.
| Ships and boats |
8000– 9000 BCE
| Beginnings of human settlements and agriculture.
| Biofuels
Water
|
6000– 7000 BCE
| Hand-made bricks first used for construction in the Middle East.
| Brick (ceramics) |
| Ancient times | | |
|---|
4000 BCE
| Iron used for the first time in decorative ornaments.
| Iron and steel |
3500– 5000 BCE
| Glass is made by people for the first time.
| Glass |
3500 BCE
| Humans invent the wheel.
| Tools and machines
Wheels and axles |
3000 BCE
| First written languages are developed by the Sumerian people of southern Mesopotamia (part of modern Iraq). | Communications
Typewriters |
| ~2500 BCE | Ancient Egyptians produce papyrus, a crude early version of paper. | Paper
Communications |
| 3000– 600BCE | Bronze Age: Widespread use of copper and its important alloy bronze. | Copper
Alloys
Metals |
| 2000 BCE | Water-raising and irrigation devices like the shaduf (shadoof), inventedby the Ancient Egyptians, introduce the idea of lifting things using counterweights. | Cranes
Elevators
Tools and machines |
c1700 BCE
| Semites of the Mediterranean develop thealphabet.
| Communications |
1000 BCE
| Iron Age begins: iron is widely used for making tools and weapons in many parts of the world.
| Iron and steel |
600 BCE | Thales of Miletus discovers static electricity. | Electricity
Static electricity
History of electricity |
| 500BCE– 900CE | Nazca people of Peru are believed to have experimented with balloon flight. | Hot-air balloons
|
| 400BCE– 300BCE | Chinese experiment with flying kites. | Airplanes
History of flight |
~250 BCE | Ancient Egyptians invent lighthouses, including the huge Lighthouse of Alexandria. | Fresnel lenses |
~300– 200 BCE | Chinese invent early magnetic direction finders. | Compasses |
~250 BCE | Archimedes invents the screw pump for moving water and other materials. | Tools and machines |
c.150– 100 BCE
| Gear-driven, precision clockwork machines (such as the Antikythera mechanism) are in existence. | Clockwork |
c.50 BCE
| Roman engineer Vitruvius perfects the modern, vertical water wheel.
| Turbines
|
62 CE | Hero of Alexandria, a Greek scientist, pioneers steam power. | Steam engines
Steam turbines |
105 CE | Ts'ai Lun makes the first paper in China. | Paper |
27 BCE–395 CE
| Romans develop the first, basic concrete calledpozzolana.
| Steel and concrete
|
| Middle Ages | | |
|---|
~600 CE
| Windmills are invented in the Middle East.
| Wind turbines
|
700–900 CE
| Chinese invent gunpowder and fireworks.
| Bullets
Fireworks
Space rockets
|
800–1300 CE
| Thanks to inventors such as the Banū Mūsā brothersand al-Jazari, the Islamic "Golden Age" sees the development of a wide rangeof technologies, including ingenious clocks and feedback mechanismsthat are the ancestors of modern automated factory machines. | Clockwork
Cams and cranks
Robots |
1000 CE ??
| Chinese develop eyeglasses by fixing lenses toframes that fit onto people's faces.
| Lenses |
1206
| Arabic engineer al-Jazari invents a flushing hand-washing machine, oneof the ancestors of the modern toilet.
| Toilets |
1232 CE
| Chinese repel Mongol invaders using early rockets.
| Space rockets
|
1450
| Johannes Gutenberg pioneers the modern printingpress, using rearrangeable metal letters called movable type.
| Printing
|
1470s
| The first parachute is sketched on paper by an unknown inventor. | Parachutes
|
| 16th century | | |
|---|
| 1530s | Gerardus Mercator helps to revolutionize navigation with better mapmaking.
| Satellite navigation
|
1590
| A Dutch spectacle maker named Zacharias Janssen makes the first compound microscope.
| Microscopes
Electron microscopes
|
1596
| Sir John Harington describes one of the first modern flush toilets. | Toilets |
| 17th century | | |
|---|
~1600
| Galileo Galilei designs a basic thermometer.
| Thermometer
|
1600
| William Gilbert publishes his great book De Magnete describing how Earth behaves like a giant magnet. It's the beginning of the scientific study of magnetism. | Magnetism History of electricity |
1609
| Galileo Galilei builds a practical telescope andmakes new astronomical discoveries.
| Space telescopes
|
mid-17th century
| Antoni van Leeuwenhoek and Robert Hookeindependently develop microscopes. | Microscopes
Electronmicroscopes
|
| 1643 | Galileo's pupil Evangelista Torricelli builds the first mercury barometer for measuring air pressure.
| Barometers
|
| 1650s | Christiaan Huygens develops the pendulum clock (using Galileo's earlier discovery that a swinging pendulum can be used to keep time). | Pendulum clocks
|
1687
| Isaac Newton formulates his three laws of motion and gravity.
| Motion
Gravity |
1700s
| Bartolomeo Cristofori invents the piano.
| Pianos |
| 18th century | | |
|---|
1701
| English farmer Jethro Tull begins the mechanization of agriculture by inventing the horse-drawn seed drill. | Tractors |
1703
| Gottfried Leibniz pioneers the binary numbersystem now used in virtually all computers. | How computers work
History of computers
|
1712 | Thomas Newcomen builds the first practical (but stationary)steam engine. | Steam engines |
| 1700s | Christiaan Huygens conceives the internal combustion engine, but never actually builds one.
| Car engines |
| 1737 | William Champion develops a commercially viable process for extracting zinc on a large scale. | Metals |
| 1757 | John Campbell invents the sextant, an improved navigational device that enables sailors to measure latitude.
| Satellite navigation
|
| 1730s– 1770s | John Harrison develops reliable chronometers (seafaring clocks) that allow sailors to measure longitude accurately for the first time.
| Quartz clocks and watches
Satellite navigation
|
| 1756 | Axel Cronstedt notices steam when he boils a rock—and discovers zeolites. | Zeolites |
| 1769 | Wolfgang von Kempelen develops a mechanical speaking machine: the world's first speech synthesizer. | Speech synthesizers |
1770s
| Abraham Darby III builds a pioneering iron bridge at a place now called Ironbridge in England. | Bridges
|
~1780
| Josiah Wedgwood (or Thomas Massey) invents the pyrometer. | Pyrometers |
| 1783 | French Brothers Joseph-Michel Montgolfier and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier make the first practicalhot-air balloon. | Hot-air balloons
|
| 1791 | Reverend William Gregor, a British clergyman and amateur geologist, discovers a mysterious mineral that he calls menachite. Four years later, Martin Klaproth gives it its modern name, titanium. | Titanium
|
| 19th century | | |
|---|
1800
| Italian Alessandro Volta makes the first battery(known as a Voltaic pile).
| Electricity
Batteries
History of electricity |
1801
| Joseph-Marie Jacquard invents the automatedcloth-weaving loom. The punched cards it uses to store patterns help toinspire programmable computers.
| History of computers |
1803
| Henry and Sealy Fourdrinier develop the papermaking machine.
| Paper |
1806
| Humphry Davy develops electrolysis into an important chemical technique and uses it to identify a number of new elements. | Electrolyzers |
1806
| Sir William Congreve develops long-range military rockets, based on an earlier Indian technology known as the Mysore rocket. | Space rockets |
1807
| Humphry Davy develops the electric arc lamp. | Xenon lamps |
1814
| George Stephenson builds the first practicalsteam locomotive.
| Steam engines |
1816
| Robert Stirling invents the efficient Stirling engine.
| Stirling engines |
1820s– 1830s
| Michael Faraday builds primitive electric generators and motors.
| Electricity generators
Electric motors
Hub motors |
1824
| Nicolas Sadi Carnot sets out his hugely influential theory of engine efficiency.
| Heat engines |
1827
| Joseph Nicéphore Niépce makes the first modern photograph.
| Photography
Digital cameras |
1830s
| William Sturgeon develops the first practicalelectric motor.
| Electric motors
Hub motors
|
1830s
| Louis Daguerre invents a practical method oftaking pin-sharp photographs called Daguerreotypes.
| Digital cameras
Photography
|
1830s
| William Henry Fox Talbot develops a way ofmaking and printing photographs using reverse images called negatives.
| Digital cameras
Photography |
1830s– 1840s
| Charles Wheatstone and William Cooke, inEngland, and Samuel Morse, in the United States, develop the electrictelegraph (a forerunner of the telephone).
| Telephones
|
1836
| Englishman Francis Petit-Smith and Swedish-American John Ericsson independently develop propellers with blades for ships. | Propellers
|
1839
| Charles Goodyear finally perfects a durable formof rubber (vulcanized rubber) after many years of unsuccessfulexperimenting.
| Rubber
|
1840s
| Scottish physicist James Prescott Joule outlinesthe theory of the conservation of energy.
| Energy
Great physics experiments |
1840s
| Scotsman Alexander Bain invents a primitive faxmachine based on chemical technology.
| Fax machines
|
1849
| James Francis invents a water turbine now usedin many of the world's hydropower plants.
| Turbines
Water
|
1850s
| Henry Bessemer pioneers a new method of making steel in large quantities.
| Iron and steel |
1850s
| Louis Pasteur develops pasteurization: a way of preserving food by heating it to kill off bacteria.
| Pasteurization |
1850s
| Italian Giovanni Caselli develops a mechanicalfax machine called the pantelegraph.
| Fax machines |
1860s
| Frenchman Étienne Lenoir and German NikolausOtto pioneer the internal combustion engine.
| Car engines
Cars, history of |
1860s
| James Clerk Maxwell figures out that radio wavesmust exist and sets out basic laws of electromagnetism.
| Radio
|
1860s
| Fire extinguishers are invented.
| Fire extinguisher
|
1861
| Elisha Graves Otis invents the elevator with built-in safety brake.
| Elevators
|
1867
| Joseph Monier invents reinforced concrete.
| Reinforced concrete |
1868
| Christopher Latham Sholes invents the moderntypewriter and QWERTY keyboard.
| Typewriters |
1871
| Frank Wenham, a British aeronautical engineer, invents the wind tunnel.
| Wind tunnels
Aerodynamics |
1876
| Alexander Graham Bell patents the telephone,though the true ownership of the invention remains controversial eventoday.
| Telephones |
1870s
| Thomas Edison develops the phonograph, the firstpractical method of recording and playing back sound on metal foil.
| CD players
MP3 players |
1870s
| Lester Pelton invents a useful new kind of waterturbine known as a Pelton wheel.
| Turbines |
1877
| Thomas Edison invents his sound-recording machine or phonograph—a forerunner of the record player and CD player.
| Record players
Sound |
1877
| Edward Very invents the flare gun (Very pistol) for sending distress flares at sea.
| Flares |
1880
| Thomas Edison patents the modern incandescentelectric lamp.
| Incandescentlamps
|
1880
| Pierre and Paul-Jacques Curie discover the piezoelectric effect.
| Piezoelectricity
|
1880s
| Thomas Edison opens the world's first powerplants.
| Power plants
|
1880s
| Charles Chamberland invents the autoclave (steam sterilizing machine).
| Autoclaves
|
1880s
| Charles and Julia Hall and Paul Heroultindependently develop an affordable way of making aluminum.
| Aluminum
|
1880s
| Carrie Everson invents new ways of miningsilver, gold, and copper.
| Copper |
| 1881 | Jacques d'Arsonval suggests heat energy could be extracted from the oceans.
| OTEC (Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion) |
1883
| George Eastman invents plastic photographicfilm.
| Digital cameras
Plastics
|
1884
| Charles Parsons develops the steam turbine.
| Steam turbines
Turbines
|
1885
| Karl Benz builds a gasoline-engined car.
| Car engines
|
1886
| Josephine Cochran invents the dishwasher.
| Dishwashers
|
1888
| Friedrich Reinitzer discovers liquid crystals. | LCD screens and displays |
1888
| John Boyd Dunlop patents air-filled (pneumatic) tires.
| Pneumatics |
1888
| Nikola Tesla patents the alternating current(AC) electric induction motor and, in opposition to Thomas Edison, becomes astaunch advocate of AC power.
| Electricity
Electric motors
Induction motors
Power plants
|
1899
| Everett F. Morse invents the optical pyrometer for measuring temperatures at a safe distance.
| Pyrometers
|
1890s
| French brothers Joseph and Louis Lumiere inventmovie projectors and open the first movie theater.
| Projection TV |
1890s
| German engineer Rudolf Diesel develops his diesel engine—a more efficient internal combustion enginewithout a sparking plug.
| Diesel engines
|
1890s
| Russian Konstantin Tsiolkovsky figures out the theory of space rockets. | Space rockets
|
1894
| Physicist Sir Oliver Lodge sends the first ever message by radio wave in Oxford, England.
| Radio
|
1895
| German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen discovers X rays.
| X rays
|
1895
| American Ogden Bolton, Jr. invents the electric bicycle.
| Electric bikes
|
1884
| Charles G. Curtis develops the compound, impulse steam turbine.
| Steam turbines |
1898
| Nikola Tesla invents remote, radio control.
| Remote control
|
| 20th century | | |
|---|
1901
| Guglielmo Marconi sends radio-wave signalsacross the Atlantic Ocean from England to Canada
| Radio |
1901
| The first electric vacuum cleaner is developed.
| Vacuum cleaners
|
1903
| Brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright build thefirst engine-powered airplane.
| Airplanes
History of flight |
1905
| Albert Einstein explains the photoelectric effect. | Photoelectric cells |
1905
| Samuel J. Bens invents the chainsaw. | Chainsaws |
1906
| Willis Carrier pioneers the air conditioner.
| Air conditioners
|
1906
| Mikhail Tswett discovers chromatography.
| Chromatography |
1907
| Leo Baekeland develops Bakelite, the firstpopular synthetic plastic.
| Plastics |
1907
| Alva Fisher invents the electric clothes washer.
| Clothes washer
|
1906-8
| Frederick Gardner Cottrell develops the electrostatic smoke precipitator (smokestack pollution scrubber).
| Air pollution
Electrostatic smoke precipitators |
1908
| American industrialist and engineer Henry Ford launches the Ford Model T, the world's first truly affordable car.
| Car engines
Cars, history of |
1909
| German chemists Fritz Haber and Zygmunt Klemensiewicz develop the glass electrode, enabling very precise measurements of acidity.
| pH meters |
1910
| Romanian-born Henri-Marie Coandă builds a simple jet plane, but it never actually flies.
| Jet enginesHistory of flight |
1912
| American chemist Gilbert Lewis describes the basic chemistry that leads to practical, lithium-ion rechargeable batteries (though they don't appear in a practical, commercial form until the 1990s).
| Lithium-ion batteries |
| 1912 | Hans Geiger develops the Geiger counter, a detector for radioactivity. | Geiger counters |
| 1916 | Robert Hutchings Goddard, an American physicist, publishes influential ideas on building space rockets. | Space rockets
|
| 1919 | Francis Aston pioneers the mass spectrometer and uses it to discover many isotopes. | Mass spectrometers |
1920s
| John Logie Baird develops mechanical television.
| Television
LCD TV |
1920s
| Philo T. Farnsworth invents modern electronictelevision. | Television
LCD TV |
1920s
| Robert H. Goddard develops the principle of themodern, liquid-fueled space rocket.
| Bullets
Space rockets |
1920s
| German engineer Gustav Tauschek and American Paul Handel independently develop primitive optical character recognition (OCR)scanning systems. | OCR |
1920s
| Albert W. Hull invents the magnetron, a device that can generate microwaves from electricity.
| Magnetrons
Microwave ovens |
1921
| Karel Capek and his brother coin the word "robot" in a playabout artificial humans.
| Robots
|
1921
| John Larson develops the polygraph ("lie detector") machine. | Forensic science |
1928
| Thomas Midgley, Jr. invents coolant chemicalsfor air conditioners and refrigerators.
| Air conditioners
Refrigerators
|
1928
| The electric refrigerator is invented.
| Refrigerators
|
| 1920s– 1930s | Frank Whittle of England and Hans Pabst von Ohain of Germany develop rival jet engines. | Jet engine
|
1930s
| Peter Goldmark pioneers color television.
| Television
LCD TV
|
1930s
| Laszlo and Georg Biro pioneer the modernballpoint pen.
| Digital pens
|
1930s
| Maria Telkes creates the first solar-poweredhouse.
| Passive solar
Solar cells
|
1930s
| Wallace Carothers develops neoprene (syntheticrubber used in wetsuits) and nylon, the first popular synthetic clothingmaterial. | Kevlar
Nomex
Nylon
Wetsuits
|
1930s
| Robert Watson Watt oversees the development ofradar.
| Radar
|
1930s
| Arnold Beckman develops the electronic pH meter.
| pH meters |
1931
| Harold E. Edgerton invents the xenon flash lamp for high-speed photography.
| Xenon lamps
|
1932
| Arne Olander discovers the shape memory effect in a gold-cadmium alloy.
| Shape memory alloys
|
1936
| W.B. Elwood invents the magnetic reed switch.
| Reed switches
|
1938
| Chester Carlson invents the principle ofphotocopying (xerography).
| Photocopiers
|
1938
| Roy Plunkett accidentally invents a nonstickplastic coating called Teflon®.
| GORE-TEX®
Nonstick pans
|
1939
| Igor Sikorsky builds the first truly practicalhelicopter.
| Helicopters
|
1940s
| English physicists John Randall and Harry Boot develop a compact magnetron for use in airplane radar navigation systems.
| Magnetrons
Radar |
1942
| Enrico Fermi builds the first nuclear chainreactor at the University of Chicago.
| Nuclear power
|
| 1945 | US government scientist Vannevar Bush proposes a kind of desk-sized memory store called Memex, which has some of the features later incorporated into electronic books and the World Wide Web (WWW). | Electronic books
World Wide Web |
| 1945 | Arthur C. Clarke conceives the idea of the communications satellite, a space-based signal"mirror" that can bounce radio waves from one side of Earth to the other. | Satellites |
1947
| John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and WilliamShockley invent the transistor, which allows electronic equipment tomade much smaller and leads to the modern computer revolution.
| Amplifiers
Electronics
History of computers
Transistors |
| 1949 | Bernard Silver and N. Joseph Woodland patent barcodes—striped patterns that are initially developedfor marking products in grocery stores. | Barcodes and barcode scanners |
1950s
| Charles Townes and Arthur Schawlow invent themaser (microwave laser). Gordon Gould coins the word "laser" and buildsthe first optical laser in 1958.
| Lasers |
1950s
| Stanford Ovshinksy develops various technologies that make renewableenergy more practical, including practical solar cells and improvedrechargeable batteries.
| Batteries
Electric bicycles
Electric cars
Solar cells
|
1950s
| European bus companies experiment with using flywheels as regenerative brakes | Flywheels |
1950s
| Percy Spencer accidentally discovers how to cookwith microwaves, inadvertently inventing the microwave oven.
| Microwave ovens
|
1956
| British computer pioneer Alan Turing describes an "imitation game" fortesting whether machines can think. It's now known as the Turing test.
| Artificial intelligence |
1952
| American John W. Hetrick and German Walter Linderer independently invent the automobile airbag.
| Airbags |
1954
| Indian physicist Narinder Kapany pioneers fiber optics.
| Fiber optics
|
1955
| US electrical engineer Eugene Polley invents the TV remote control.
| Remote control
|
1956
| First commercial nuclear power is produced at Calder Hall, Cumbria, England.
| Nuclear power plants |
1956
| US computer scientist John McCarthy coins the term "artificial intelligence."
| Artificial intelligence |
1957
| Soviet Union (Russia and her allies) launch theSputnik space satellite.
| Satellites
|
1957
| Lawrence Curtiss, Basil Hirschowitz, and Wilbur Peters build the first fiber-optic gastroscope. | Fiber optics
|
1958
| Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce, workingindependently, develop the integrated circuit.
| History of computers
integrated circuits
Transistors |
1959
| IBM and General Motors develop Design Augmented by Computers-1 (DAC-1),the first computer-aided design (CAD) system. | Computer graphics
|
| 1960s | Joseph-Armand Bombardier perfects his Ski-Doo® snowmobile. | Snowmobiles
|
| 1960 | Theodore Maiman invents the ruby laser.
| Lasers
|
| 1962 | William Armistead and S. Donald Stookey of Corning Glass Works invent light-sensitive (photochromic) glass. | Photochromic lenses
|
| 1962 | Nick Holonyak invents the LED (light-emitting diode) while working at General Electric. | Diodes and LEDs
|
| 1963 | Ivan Sutherland develops Sketchpad, one of the first computer-aided design programs.
| Computer graphics
|
1964
| IBM helps to pioneer e-commerce with an airlineticket reservation system called SABRE.
| E-commerce
|
1965
| Frank Pantridge develops the portable defibrillator for treating cardiac arrest patients. | Defibrillators
|
1966
| Stephanie Kwolek patents a super-strong plasticcalled Kevlar.
| Kevlar
|
1966
| Robert H. Dennard of IBM invents dynamic random access memory (DRAM).
| Computer memory
|
1967
| Japanese company Noritake invents the vacuum fluorescent display (VFD). | Vacuum fluorescent displays
|
1968
| Alfred Y. Cho and John R. Arthur, Jr invent a precise way of making single crystals called molecular beam epitaxy (MBE).
| Molecular beam epitaxy
|
1969
| World's first solar power station opened inFrance.
| Solar cells
Energy
|
1969
| Robert W. Gore develops an ingenious waterproof material called GORE-TEX® by stretching slippery, nonstick PTFE (Teflon®). | GORE-TEX® |
1969
| Long before computers become portable, Alan Kay imagines building an electronic book, which he nicknames the Dynabook.
| Electronic books |
1969
| Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith invent the CCD (charge-coupled device): the light-sensitive chip used in digital cameras, webcams, and other modern optical equipment.
| CCDs
Digital cameras |
1969
| Astronauts walk on the Moon.
| Space rockets
|
1960s
| Douglas Engelbart develops the computer mouse.
| Computer mouse
|
1960s
| James Russell invents compact discs.
| CD players
|
1971
| Electronic ink is pioneered by Nick Sheridon at Xerox PARC. | Electronic ink and paper |
1971
| Ted Hoff builds the first single-chip computeror microprocessor.
| History ofcomputers |
1973
| Martin Cooper develops the first handheldcellphone (mobile phone).
| Cellphones
|
1973
| Robert Metcalfe figures out a simple way oflinking computers together that he names Ethernet. Most computershooked up to the Internet now use it.
| Computernetworks
Internet
|
| 1974 | First grocery-store purchase of an item coded with a barcode. | Barcodes and barcode scanners |
1975
| Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman invent public-key cryptography. | Encryption |
1975
| Pico Electronics develops X-10 home automation system. | Smart homes |
1976
| Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs launch the Apple I:one of the world's first personal home computers
| History ofcomputers |
1970s– 1980s
| James Dyson invents the bagless, cyclonic vacuumcleaner.
| Vacuum cleaners
|
1970s– 1980s
| Scientists including Charles Bennett, Paul Benioff, Richard Feynman, and David Deutsch sketch out how quantum computersmight work. | Quantum computers |
1980s
| Japanese electrical pioneer Akio Morita developsthe Sony Walkman, the first truly portable player for recorded music.
| CD players
MP3 players |
1981
| Stung by Apple's success, IBM releases its ownaffordable personal computer (PC).
| History ofcomputers |
1981
| The Space Shuttle makes its maiden voyage.
| Space Shuttle |
1981
| Patricia Bath develops laser eye surgery forremoving cataracts.
| Lasers |
1981
| Fujio Masuoka files a patent for flash memory—a type of reusable computermemory that can store information even when the power is off. | Flash memory |
1981– 1982
| Alexei Ekimov and Louis E. Brus (independently) discover quantum dots.
| Quantum dots |
1983
| Compact discs (CDs) are launched as a new way tostore music by the Sony and Philips corporations.
| CD players
|
1987
| Larry Hornbeck, working at Texas Instruments, develops DLP® projection—now used in many projection TV systems. | DLP® projectors |
1989
| Tim Berners-Lee invents the World Wide Web.
| Internet
World Wide Web
|
1990
| German watchmaking company Junghans introduces the MEGA 1, believed to be the world's first radio-controlled wristwatch.
| Radio-controlled clocks
Quartz clocks and watches |
1991
| Linus Torvalds creates the first version ofLinux, a collaboratively written computer operating system.
| Computers
Linux
|
1994
| American-born mathematician John Daugman perfects the mathematics that make iris scanning systems possible.
| Iris scans
|
1994
| Japanese Masahiro Hara invents a two-dimensional barcode known as the QR Code®.
| QR codes and 2D barcodes
|
1994
| Israeli computer scientists Alon Cohen and Lior Haramaty invent VoIP for sending telephone calls over the Internet.
| VoIP
|
1995
| Broadcast.com becomes one of the world's firstonline radio stations.
| Streaming media
|
1995
| Pierre Omidyar launches the eBay auction website.
| E-commerce |
1996
| WRAL-HD broadcasts the first high-definition television (HDTV) signal in the United States. | HDTV |
1997
| Electronics companies agree to make Wi-Fi aworldwide standard for wireless Internet.
| Wireless Internet
|
| 21st century | | |
|---|
| 2001 | Apple revolutionizes music listening by unveiling its iPod MP3 music player. | MP3 players |
2001
| Richard Palmer develops energy-absorbing D3O plastic.
| Energy-absorbing materials
|
2001
| The Wikipedia online encyclopedia is founded by Larry Sanger and Jimmy Wales.
| Electronic books
|
2001
| Bram Cohen develops BitTorrent file-sharing.
| BitTorrent
Internet
|
| 2001 | Scott White, Nancy Sottos, and colleagues develop self-healing materials. | Self-healing materials |
2002
| iRobot Corporation releases the first version of its Roomba® vacuum cleaning robot.
| Roomba
Robots
|
2004
| Electronic voting plays a major part in acontroversial US Presidential Election.
| Touchscreens
|
2004
| Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov discover graphene. | Graphene
|
2005
| A pioneering low-cost laptop for developingcountries called OLPC is announced by MIT computing pioneer NicholasNegroponte.
| Computers
|
2007
| Amazon.com launches its Kindle electronic book (e-book) reader.
| Electronic books |
2007
| Apple introduces a touchscreen cellphone calledthe iPhone.
| Cellphones
Touchscreens
|
2010
| Apple releases its touchscreen tablet computer, the iPad.
| Computers
Touchscreens
|
2010
| 3D TV starts to become more widely available.
| 3D Television
Television |
2013
| Elon Musk announces "hyperloop"—a giant, pneumatic tube transport system. | Pneumatics
Pneumatic transport tube |
2015
| Supercomputers (the world's fastest computers) are now a mere 30 times less powerful thanhuman brains. | Supercomputers |
| 2016 | Three nanotechnologists win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for building miniature machines out of molecules. | Nanotechnology |
| 2019 | Google claims to have achieved "quantum supremacy"—with a quantum computer thatcalculates faster than a conventional one. | Quantum computers |
| 2020 | DeepMind, Google/Alphabet's artificial intelligence computer program, cracks the classic problem ofprotein folding. | Neural networks
Artificial intelligence |
2022
| NASA unveils Space Launch System (SLS), a new moon rocket 15 percent more powerful than the Saturn Vrocket from the Apollo era. | Space rockets |
| 2023 | Microsoft announces a new version of its Bing search engine incorporating ChatGPT, an "artificially intelligent" chatbot, for smarter answers to search queries. | Artificial intelligence |
