Timeline Technology
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236BC
Archimedes, according to the Roman architect
Vitruvius, built his first elevator about this time.
(SFC, 8/23/08, p.F4)
150BC-100BC In 1901 pieces of an
ancient Greek calculating machine, called the Antikythera Mechanism,
were discovered by sponge divers exploring the remains of a shipwreck
off the tiny island of Antikythera. Radiocarbon dating suggested it was
built around 65 BC, but in 2006 newly revealed lettering on the machine
indicate a slightly older construction date of 150 to 100 BC. In 2008
researchers said the device, which originally contained 37 gears,
included the cycle of the Greek Olympics.
(http://tinyurl.com/y255xr)(SFC, 7/31/08, p.A15)
c1-100AD Steam engines--machines harnessing the heat
energy of hot steam to perform work--date to the steam turbine invented
by Hero of Alexandria in the 1st century AD called the aeolipile.
However, the aeolipile was regarded as a curiosity demonstrating a
mechanical principle and was not developed into a practical engine.
(HNQ, 1/18/01)
300-400 As long ago as the 4th century, an Egyptian
scientist named Papp suggested there should be a science called
heuristics to solve inventive problems.
(www.mazur.net/triz/)
1377 In Korea Jikjisimgyeong, a
Buddhist scripture, was printed with the world’s first movable metal
type.
(LSA, Spring, 2009, p.17)
1421 The Republic of Florence
passed a law giving Brunelleschi what is thought to be the first true
patent of an invention. The first recorded patent was granted for a
barge with hoisting gear used to transport marble.
(http://tinyurl.com/c3teab)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R14)
1441 In Korea King Sejong called
for better water management in his agricultural based economy and
Yeong-sil Jang responded with the first rain gauge.
(LSA, Spring, 2009, p.17)
1450 First book printed with
movable metal type. Johannes Gutenberg printed a bible with movable
type in Mainz. He perfected interchangeable type that could be cast in
large quantities and invented a new type of press. [see 1452]
(NG, March 1990, p. 117)(WSJ, 10/31/96, p.A21)(WSJ,
1/11/99, p.R14)
1452 Sep 30, The 1st book was
published, Johannes Guttenberg's Bible. [see 1450]
(MC, 9/30/01)
1492 Oct 26, Lead pencils were 1st
used.
(MC, 10/26/01)
1498 Jun 26, Toothbrush was
invented. In China the first toothbrushes with hog bristles began to
show up. Hog bristle brushes remained the best until the invention of
nylon.
(SFC, 6/6/98, p.E3)(MC, 6/26/02)
1590 The microscope was invented.
(SFC, 8/16/97, p.E3)
1608 Oct 2, Jan Lippershey,
spectacle maker, formally offered to the Estates of Holland his new
spyglass for warfare. He was the 1st to file a patent claim for a
spyglass.
(www.britannica.com/eb/article?tocId=9048449)(CW,
Spring ‘99, p.33)
1621 Dec 3, Galileo invented the
telescope.
(MC, 12/3/01)
1624 Sep 12, The 1st submarine was
tested in London.
(MC, 9/12/01)
1644 Jul 11(Jun 11), A Florentine
scientist described the invention of barometer.
(MC, 7/11/02)
1646 Mar 6, Joseph Jenkes received
the 1st colonial machine patent.
(MC, 3/6/02)
1647 Aug 22, Denis Papin, inventor
of the pressure cooker, was born.
(HN, 8/22/00)
1675 Jan 20, Christian Huygens,
Dutch scientist, transformed a theoretical insight on springs into a
practical mechanism with the 1st sketch of a watch balance regulated by
a coiled spring.
(www.princeton.edu/~mike/articles/huygens/timelong/timelong.html)(Econ,
2/4/06, p.73)
1684 Apr 25, A patent was granted
for the thimble.
(SS, 4/25/02)
1690 Jan 14, The clarinet was
invented in Germany.
(MC, 1/14/02)
1696 Jacques Ozanam, a visionary
Frenchman, 1st proposed a “self-moving vehicle.”
(Econ, 2/5/05, p.77)
1698 English engineer Thomas
Savery devised a way to pump water out of mines by the use of condensed
steam.
(HNQ, 1/18/01)
1709 Jan 10, Abraham Darby
(1678-1717) in Coalbrookdale, England, began using coke to provide
carbon for making iron. This led to the end of the use of charcoal for
making iron.
(Econ, 8/29/09,
p.69)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Darby_I)
1712 Englishman Thomas Newcomen
created a piston system to separate the steam from the water.
(HNQ, 1/18/01)
1714 Jan 7, A typewriter was
patented by Englishman Henry Mill. It was built years later.
(MC, 1/7/02)
1722 Oct 19, French C. Hopffer
patented the fire extinguisher.
(MC, 10/19/01)
1738 Jacques de Vaucanson
exhibited a mechanical flute player that actually breathed.
(WSJ, 8/23/02, p.W8)
1738 Apr 15, The bottle opener was
invented.
(MC, 4/15/02)
1741 Dec 25, Astronomer Anders
Celcius introduced the Centigrade temperature scale.
(MC, 12/25/01)
1742 Jul 11(Jun 11), Benjamin
Franklin invented his Franklin stove.
(MC, 7/11/02)
1743 In France Louis XV
commissioned an elevator installed at Versailles to link his apartment
to that of his mistress.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R14)(SFC, 8/23/08, p.F4)
1744 Feb 15, John Hadley, inventor
(sextant), died.
(MC, 2/15/02)
1752 May 10, Benjamin Franklin 1st
tested his lightning rod. [see Jun 15]
(MC, 5/10/02)
1752 Jun 15, Benjamin Franklin and
his son tested the relationship between electricity and lightning by
flying a kite in a thunder storm. [see May 10]
(HN, 6/15/01)
1753 Sep 9, The 1st steam engine
arrived in US colonies.
(MC, 9/9/01)
1755 Mar 12, The 1st steam engine
in America was installed to pump water from a mine.
(MC, 3/12/02)
1761 Benjamin Franklin invented
his glass armonica.
(WSJ, 1/15/04, p.D8)
1762 The Harrison chronometer was
invented. It allowed voyagers to calculate longitudinal distance.
(SFC, 1/31/04, p.A1)
1765 Nov 14, Robert Fulton,
inventor, was born. His steamboat, the Clermont, made its 1st voyage on
Aug 17, 1807.
(HN, 11/14/98)(WSJ, 7/27/04, p.D10)
1765 Scotsman James Watt further
refined Thomas Newcomen’s piston system steam engine innovation by
adding a separate condenser. Watt took out a patent on his improved
engine in 1769.
(HNQ, 1/18/01)
1765 Eberhard put erasers on
pencils. [see 1794]
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R14)
1766 Apr 8, The 1st fire escape
was patented: a wicker basket on a pulley and chain.
(MC, 4/8/02)
1766 Henry Cavendish isolated
hydrogen during experiments with H2O in England.
(NH, 7/02, p.32)
1769 Wolfgang von Kempelen of
Hungary invented the Automoton Chess Player. It was 1st demonstrated to
the Austrian court in 1770. In 2001 the deception was analyzed by James
W. Cook in his book "The Arts of Deception." In 2002 Tom Standage
authored "The Turk," an examination of the 18th century fascination
with automatons.
(WSJ, 7/12/01, p.A14)(WSJ, 4/12/02, p.W12)
1769 Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot, a
French military engineer, invented an ungainly, steam-powered tricycle
and practical steam locomotives and steamboats appeared early in the
next century, eventually superceded by the internal combustion engine.
(HNQ, 1/18/01)
1771 Apr 13, Richard Trevithick,
inventor of the steam locomotive, was born in Cornwall, England.
(ON, 4/04, p.4)
1774 Feb 10, Andrew Becker
demonstrated a diving suit.
(MC, 2/10/02)
1774 Aug 1, British scientist
Joseph Priestley succeeded in isolating oxygen from air in Calne,
England. He called his new gas "dephlogisticated air.”
(ON, 10/05, p.2)(AP, 8/1/07)
1778 Apr 22, James Hargreaves,
inventor (spinning jenny), died.
(MC, 4/22/02)
1779 Jan 18, Peter Roget,
thesaurus fame, inventor (slide rule, pocket chessboard), was born.
(MC, 1/18/02)
1779 Apr 24, Mr. H. Sykes, an
English optician living in Paris, wrote to Ben Franklin and explained a
delay in sending an order for special spectacles, complaining that he
was having difficulty making them. Franklin is believed to have ordered
his first pair of bifocals from Sykes.
(www.antiquespectacles.com/topics/franklin/franklin.htm)
1781 Jun 9, George Stephenson,
English engineer, inventor of the steam locomotive, was born in
Newcastle, England.
(HN, 6/9/01)(MC, 6/9/02)
1783 Aug 27, 1st hydrogen balloon
flight (unmanned); reached 900 m altitude.
(MC, 8/28/01)
1783 Oct 6, Benjamin Hanks
patented a self-winding clock.
(MC, 10/6/01)
1783 Oliver Evans (1755-1819),
American inventor, designed an automated gristmill.
(WSJ, 6/4/08,
p.A19)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Evans)
1785 May 23, Benjamin Franklin in
Paris spoke of his invention of bifocals in a letter to friend and
philanthropist George Whatley.
(www.antiquespectacles.com/topics/franklin/franklin.htm)
1787 Aug 22, Inventor John Fitch
demonstrated his steamboat, the Perseverance, on the Delaware River to
delegates of the Continental Congress. In 2004 Andrea Sutcliffe
authored “Steam: The Untold Story of America’s First Great Invention.”
(AP, 8/22/99)(WSJ, 7/27/04, p.D10)
1788 Feb 1, Isaac Briggs and
William Longstreet patented the steamboat on this day.
(440 Int'l, 2/1/1999)
1789 Mar 16, George S. Ohm
(d.1854), German scientist, was born. He gave his name to the ohm
unit of electrical resistance. [WUD says Mar 16, 1787]
(HN, 3/16/99)(WUD, 1994 p.1001)
1789 Uranium was discovered and
named after the planet Uranus.
(NH, 7/02, p.36)
1790 Mar 27, The shoelace was
invented.
(MC, 3/27/02)
1790 Apr 10, President George
Washington signed into law the first United States Patent Act. The
Patent Board was made up of the Secretary of State, Secretary of War
and the Attorney General and was responsible for granting patents on
"useful and important" inventions. In the first three years, 47 patents
were granted. Until 1888 miniature models of the device to be patented
were required. [see July 31]
(HN, 4/10/98)(HNQ, 8/6/99)(AP, 4/10/07)
1790 Jul 31, The U.S. Patent
Office granted its first patent to Samuel Hopkins of Vermont, developer
of a new method the manufacture of pot and pearl ash, potash. [see Apr
10]
(HN, 7/31/98)(HNQ, 8/6/99)
1790 The "Philadelphia Spelling
Book" was the first US work to be copyrighted.
(WSJ, 6/14/00, p.A1)
1791 Mar 10, John Stone of
Concord, Mass, patented a pile driver.
(MC, 3/10/02)
1791 Mar 11, Samuel Mulliken of
Philadelphia was the 1st to obtain more than 1 US patent.
(MC, 3/12/02)
1791 Aug 2, Samuel Briggs and his
son patented a nail-making machine.
(MC, 8/2/02)
1791 Aug 26, John Fitch and James
Rumsey, rival inventors, were both granted a US patent for a working
steamboat.
(MC, 8/26/02)(WSJ, 7/27/04, p.D10)
1792 May 12, A toilet that flushed
itself at regular intervals was patented.
(MC, 5/12/02)
1793 Jun 20, Eli Whitney
petitioned for a cotton gin patent in Philadelphia.
(www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part3/3h1517t.html)
1793 Oct 28, Eli Whitney applied
for a patent on the cotton gin, a machine which cleaned the
tight-clinging seeds from short-staple cotton easily and effectively--a
job which was previously done by hand. The patent was granted the
following March. [see Mar 13, Jun 20, 1793, Mar 14, 1794]
(AP, 10/28/97)(HN, 10/28/98)
1794 Feb 14, 1st US textile
machinery patent was granted, to James Davenport in Phila.
(MC, 2/14/02)
1794 Mar 14, Eli Whitney received
a patent for his cotton gin, an invention that revolutionized America's
cotton industry. He paid substantial royalties to Catherine T. Greene
and this makes his claim to the invention suspect.
(AP, 3/14/97)(SFC, 10/4/97, p.E3)
1794 Mar 23, Josiah Pierson
patented a "cold-header" (rivet) machine.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1794 A French inventor mixed
ground graphite with clay and water and fired it to make strong pencil
leads. [see 1765]
(WSJ, 11/24/00, p.A1)
1799 Jan 25, Eliakim Spooner of
Vermont received the 1st US patent for a seeding machine.
(MC, 1/25/02)
1800 William Herschel (1738-1822),
German-born English astronomer, detected what later became known as
infra-red red light in experiments with glass prisms and thermometers.
(NH, 11/1/04, p.54)
1800 Alessandro Volta (1745-1827),
Italian physicist, first demonstrated the electric pile or battery.
(V.D.-H.K.p.269)(Econ, 3/8/08, TQ p.22)
1801 Dec 24, Richard Trevithick,
inventor of the steam locomotive, completed a road test of his 1st
"traveling engine" in Camborne, England.
(ON, 4/04, p.5)
1802 Feb 8, Simon Willard patented
a banjo clock.
(MC, 2/8/02)
1802 Mar 24, Richard Trevithick
was granted a patent in London for his steam locomotive.
(ON, 4/04, p.5)
1802 Jul 9, Thomas Davenport,
invented 1st commercial electric motor, was born.
(MC, 7/9/02)
1803 May 17, John Hawkins and
Richard French patented a reaping machine.
(MC, 5/17/02)
1803 Sep 8, A high pressure steam
boiler, made by Richard Trevithick, exploded at a corn mill in
Greenwich, England, and 3 men were killed. A worker had left a heavy
wrench on the safety valve and gone fishing.
(ON, 4/04, p.5)
1803 The steel ink pen was
developed in Birmingham, England.
(SFC, 12/13/06, p.E3)
1804 Feb 21, The 1st locomotive,
Richard Trevithick's, ran for 1st time in Wales.
(MC, 2/21/02)
1804 Feb 6, Joseph Priestley
(b.1733), English-born US writer, philosopher and chemist, died in
Pennsylvania. He became best known for having discovered oxygen.
Priestley also figured out how to manufacture carbonated water and is
sometimes called “the father of the soft-drink industry.” In 2008
Steven Johnson authored “The Invention of Air: A Story of Science,
faith, Revolution, and the Birth of America.”
(www.britannica.com/eb/article-9061366)(ON, 10/05,
p.1)(SFC, 1/9/09, p.E3)
1805 The Philadelphia harbor was
dredged with a high-pressure steam engine invented by Oliver Evans. He
was unable to get a proper patent for it.
(WSJ, 6/4/08, p.A19)
1806 Oct 7, Carbon paper was
patented in London by inventor Ralph Wedgewood.
(MC, 10/7/01)
1807 Aug 17, Robert Fulton’s
"North River Steam Boat" (popularly known as the "Clermont") began
heading up New York’s Hudson River on its successful round-trip to
Albany. He named the boat Katherine of Clermont after his wife. It was
125 feet (142-feet) long and 20 feet wide with side paddle wheels and a
sheet iron boiler. He averaged 5 mph for the 300-mile round trip.
(AP, 8/17/97)(SFC, 6/20/98, p.F4)(WSJ, 9/21/01,
p.A22)
1808 Apr 30, Italian Pellegrini
Turri built the 1st practical typewriter for the blind Countess
Carolina Fantoni da Fivizono, the world's first typist.
(SFEC, 1/10/99, Z1 p.8)(SFC, 7/26/00, p.D3)(MC,
4/30/02)
1808 Jul 9, A leather-splitting
machine was patented by Samuel Parker of Billerica, MA.
(MC, 7/9/02)
1809 Feb 15, Cyrus Hall McCormick,
inventor (Mechanical reaper), was born.
(MC, 2/15/02)
1809 Nov 22, Peregrine Williamson
of Baltimore patented a steel pen.
(MC, 11/22/01)
1809 Nicholas Appert won a French
prize of 12,000 francs for his method of keeping food in glass bottles.
Napoleon had offered the prize with military needs in mind.
(SFC, 9/19/07, p.G6)
1812 Dec 4, Peter Gaillard of
Lancaster, Pa., patented a horse-drawn mower.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1813 Apr 29, Rubber was patented.
(HN, 4/29/98)
1815 Oct 31, Sir Humphrey Davy of
London patented miner's safety lamp.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1816 Aug 24, Daniel Gooch, laid
1st successful transatlantic cables, was born.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1816 Robert Stirling, British
clergyman, proposed a sealed heated air engine to compete with the
ubiquitous steam engine. His Stirling engine converted heat into
mechanical energy by compressing and expanding a fixed quantity of gas.
(Econ, 8/14/04, p.72)(Econ, 6/6/09, p.24)
1816 In France Dr. Rene Theophile
Hyacinthe Laennec invented the stethoscope.
(ON, 9/00, p.11)
1818 Baron Karl de Drais de
Sauerbrun of Germany invented the draisienne, the first 2-wheeled,
rider-propelled machine and exhibited it in Paris. The vehicle came to
be known as the “velocipede,” a 2-wheeled running machine without
pedals.
(Wired, 2/98, p.172)(Econ, 2/5/05, p.77)
1819 May 21, The 1st bicycles
(swift walkers) in US were introduced in NYC.
(MC, 5/21/02)
1819 May 26, The first
steam-propelled vessel to attempt a trans-Atlantic crossing, the
350-ton Savannah, departed from Savannah, Ga., May 26 and arrived in
Liverpool, England, Jun 20. [HNQ set May 24 for the departure]
(AP, 5/22/97)(HNQ, 3/18/02)
1819 Jun 26, The bicycle was
patented by W.K. Clarkson, Jr. of New York City. [see May 21]
(MC, 6/26/02)
1819 Sep 6, Thomas Blanchard
(b.1788) patented the lathe.
(MC, 9/6/01)
1822 Mar 9, The first patent for
false teeth was requested by C. Graham of NY. [see 1882]
(HN, 3/9/98)(MC, 3/9/02)
1822 Jun 14, Charles Babbage
(1792-1871), a young Cambridge mathematician, announced the invention
of a machine capable of performing simple arithmetic calculations in a
paper to the Astronomical Society. His 1st Difference Engine could
perform up to 60 error-free calculation in 5 minutes. Babbage and
engineer John Clement completed the calculator portion of a new engine
in 1832, but the project lost funding and remained unfinished.
(I&I, Penzias, p.94)(ON, 5/05, p.5)
1823 Apr 22, R.J. Tyers patented
roller skates.
(MC, 4/22/02)
1824 Jun 8, A washing machine was
patented by Noah Cushing of Quebec.
(MC, 6/8/02)
1824 Oct 21, Joseph Aspdin
patented Portland cement in Yorkshire, England.
(MC, 10/21/01)
1824 Oct 23, The 1st steam
locomotive was introduced.
(MC, 10/23/01)
1824 The first company to come out
with the paper milk carton was the Toronto East India Company, which
developed it in 1824 due to a glass shortage.
(www.milk.com/experiments/exper17.html)
1825 Sep 27, The Stockton and
Darlington rail line opened in England. The first locomotive to haul a
passenger train was operated by George Stephenson in England. The
British engineers Richard Trevithick and George Stevenson were the
first innovators of the technology.
(AP,
9/27/97)(www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RAstephensonG.htm)
1825 The element aluminum was
discovered.
(NH, 7/02, p.35)
1826 Apr 1, Samuel Mory
patented the internal combustion engine.
(OTD)
1826 Scotsman Robert Stein
invented the continuous still. It was later refined by Aeneas Coffey as
the Coffey still.
(Hem, 11/02, p.36)
1827 Apr 2, Joseph Dixon began
manufacturing lead pencils.
(MC, 4/2/02)
1827 Apr 7, English chemist John
Walker invented wooden matches.
(MC, 4/7/02)
1829 Jul 23, William Austin Burt
of Mount Vernon, Mich., received a patent for his "typographer," a
forerunner of the typewriter.
(AP, 7/23/99)
1829 Aug 9, The locomotive
"Stourbridge Lion" went into service.
(MC, 8/9/02)
1830 May 3, The 1st regular steam
train passenger service started.
(MC, 5/3/02)
1830 May 18, Edwin Beard Budding
of England signed an agreement for the manufacture of his invention,
the lawn mower. He adopted the rotary blade in the cloth industry to
grass.
(SC, 5/18/02)(Econ, 12/20/03, p.118)
1830 May 20, Dr. Hyde patented a
fountain pen.
(MC, 5/20/02)
1831 May 16, David Edward Hughes,
inventor (microphone, teleprinter), was born.
(MC, 5/16/02)
1831 Aug 9, 1st US steam engine
train run was from Albany to Schenectady, NY.
(MC, 8/9/02)
1831 Aug 29, Michael Faraday,
British physicist, demonstrated the 1st electric transformer. Faraday
had discovered that a changing magnetic field produces an electric
current in a wire, a phenomenon known as electromagnetic induction.
(www.acmi.net.au/AIC/FARADAY_BIO.html)(WSJ, 9/17/01,
p.R6)
1831 US copyright protections were
expanded to cover musical compositions.
(SFC, 4/8/02, p.E1)
1831 The lawn mower was invented
in England.
(SFC, 7/14/99, p.4)
1833 Apr 22, Richard Trevithick
(62), inventor (steam locomotive), died.
(MC, 4/22/02)
1835 Aug 2, Elisha Grey, inventor
(Telephone), was born.
(MC, 8/2/02)
1835 Nov 23, Henry Burden invented
the first machine for manufacturing horseshoes. He then made most of
the horseshoes for the Union Cavalry in the Civil War. Burden patented
a horseshoe manufacturing machine in Troy, NY.
(SFC, 7/13/96, p.E3)(MC, 11/23/01)
1836 Feb 25, Samuel Colt patented
the first revolving barrel multi-shot firearm.
(HN, 2/25/98)(AP, 2/25/98)
1836 Mar 23, Coin Press was
invented by Franklin Beale.
(SS, 3/23/02)
1836 Oct 24, A. Phillips patented
the match.
(HN, 10/24/98)(MC, 10/24/01)
1837 Dec 29, A threshing
machine powered by a single horse treadmill was patented in Winthrop,
Maine, by twins Hiram A. and John A. Pitts.
(DM, 8/5/03)
1837 Samuel F.B. Morse
incorporated the discoveries of Sturgeon and Henry in the first
practical telegraph, separating the magnet from the switch by some five
hundred yards of wire. [see 1838, 1844]
(I&I, Penzias, p.96)
1837 English plumber Thomas
Crapper came out with a flush model, valve controlled, water closet.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow installed one in his home in 1840 and
sparked public attention. Thomas Crapper, popularly credited with
inventing the water closet, held three patents, although he may simply
have bought the siphon discharge system patent from Albert Giblin and
marketed it himself. In 1969 Wallace Reyburn authored “Flushed with
Pride: The Story of Thomas Crapper.”
(HNQ, 11/25/00)(http://tinyurl.com/2ws5w)
1838 Jan 6, Samuel Morse
(1791-1872) first publicly demonstrated his telegraph, in Morristown,
N.J. In 2003 David Paul Nickles authored "Under the Wire," a history of
the telegraph and its impact on the world. [see Jan 8]
(AP, 1/6/98)(WSJ, 1/7/04, p.D10)
1838 Jan 8, 1st telegraph message
using dots & dashes was sent in NJ. [see Jan 6]
(MC, 1/8/02)
1839 Jan 2, French photographic
pioneer Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre took the first photograph of the
moon. Soon after his first photograph of people was a shoeshine scene
on a Paris boulevard.
(HN, 1/2/99)(SFEC, 1/16/00, Z1 p.2)(ON, 4/00, p.10)
1839 Jan 9, The Daguerreotype
photo process was announced at the French Academy of Science. Louis
Daguerre had the influential astronomer Dominique-Francois-Argo make an
announcement at the Academy of Sciences in Paris of the daguerreotype,
a photographic process using fumes of iodine to sensitize a silver
plate, vapor of mercury to bring out the image, and common salt to fix
the image. [See 1765-1833, Nicephore Niepce, French lithographer, and
1816].
(http://www.articleworld.org/index.php/Louis_Daguerre)(http://tinyurl.com/arl5k5)(WSJ,
9/14/95, p.A-16)(ON, 10/08, p.9)
1839 Jan 28, William Henry Fox
Talbot (1800-1877), English inventor, presented his discoveries and
methods of photography to the Royal Society of London. His callotype, a
negative to positive process, allowed multiple reproductions of a
single image for the 1st time. Talbot suggested a daguerreotype camera
with extra parts to hold mercury.
(ON, 4/00, p.10)(SFC, 6/12/96, Z1 p.5)(SFC,
12/26/02, p.E9)
1839 Feb 24, A steam shovel was
patented by William Otis, Philadelphia.
(MC, 2/24/02)
1839 Aug 19, At a meeting of the
French Academy of Sciences in Paris a new photographic process was
unveiled by Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre. He "was able to capture
images directly onto small, silvered plates; and in England where
William Henry Fox invented what he called "photogenic drawing." This
process produced a negative image on paper from which positive images
could be made... but it took more than an hour to take a picture and
the fuzzy prints were difficult to see. The daguerreotype enabled the
photographer to create a highly detailed image. The process consisted
of polishing a copper plate, using iodine to sensitize it, and
developing it over mercury after exposing it to light in a camera.
Daguerreotypes became so popular in the United States that New York
City boasted more than 70 daguerreotype studios by 1850.
(Smith., 5/95, p.72)(HNQ, 10/28/98)
1839 Sep 9, John Herschel
(1792-1871), English astronomer, took the 1st glass plate photograph.
(www.getty.edu)
1839 Charles Goodyear (1800-1860)
found the right formula for making rubber impervious to temperature, a
combination of chemicals and heat that became know as vulcanization.
(WSJ, 7/31/02, p.D10)(ON, 6/07, p.11)
1839 Erastus Bigelow invented the
1st power loom. It doubled carpet production within a year.
(SFCM, 10/10/04, p.8)
1839 The photovoltaic effect,
where light produces a current, was 1st noticed.
(SFC, 4/14/03, p.E1)
1839 The basic idea for
electrocombustion, the combination of oxygen and hydrogen to generate
electricity and water, was discovered. This later provided the basis
for fuel cell technology.
(Wired, 10/96, p.128)(SFC, 9/28/01, p.B9)
1840 Jan 18, "Electro-Magnetic
Intelligencer", 1st US electrical journal, appeared.
(MC, 1/18/02)
1840 May 8, Alexander Wolcott
patented a photographic process.
(MC, 5/8/02)
1840 Jun 20, Samuel F.B. Morse, a
popular artist, patented his telegraph.
(MC, 6/20/02)
1841 Aug 21, John Hampson of New
Orleans patented the Venetian blind.
(SC, 8/21/02)
1841 Sep 30, Samuel Slocum
patented the stapler.
(MC, 9/30/01)
1842 Feb 21, 1st known sewing
machine was patented in US by John Greenough in Wash, DC. [see
1830,1833]
(MC, 2/21/02)
1842 Aug 31, Micah Rugg patented a
nuts & bolts machine.
(MC, 8/31/01)
1843 Mar 3, US Congress
appropriated $30,000 "to test the practicability of establishing a
system of electro-magnetic telegraphs."
(SC, 3/3/02)
1843 Aug 26, Charles Thurber
patented a typewriter.
(MC, 8/26/02)
1843 Dec 4, Manila paper (made
from sails, canvas & rope) was patented in Mass.
(MC, 12/4/01)
1843 Norbert Rillieux (1806-1894)
received US patent # 3,237 for a double-effect evaporator, while
overseeing the building of the device for plantation owner Theodore
Packwood.
(www.answers.com/topic/norbert-rillieux)
1843 Alexander Bain, Scottish
inventor, received a British patent for “improvements in producing and
regulating electric currents and improvements in timepieces and in
electric printing and signal telegraphs.” His fax machine evolved from
the telegraph technology.
(http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blfax.htm)
1844 May 1, Samuel Morse sent the
1st telegraphic message. [see Jan 6, 1838, May 24, 1844]
(MC, 5/1/02)
1844 May 25, The first telegraphed
news dispatch, sent from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore, appeared in
the Baltimore "Patriot."
(AP, 5/25/97)
1844 Jun 15, Charles Goodyear
(1800-1860) received patent #3633 for the vulcanization of rubber, his
process to strengthen rubber. He had perfected the process in 1839 and
never took out a European patent.
(AP,
6/15/97)(www.patents4technologies.com/Historical.htm)(ON, 6/07, p.11)
1845 Mar 17, The rubber band was
patented by Stephen Perry of London. [see May 17]
(MC, 3/17/02)
1845 May 17, The rubber band was
patented. [see Mar 17]
(MC, 5/17/02)
1846 Nov 4, Benjamin F. Palmer of
Meredith N.H. received a patent on an artificial human leg.
(SFEC, 3/29/98, Z1 p.8)(MC, 11/4/01)
1846 Dec 10, Norbert Rillieux
(1806-1894), African-American engineer, received a patent for the
Rillieux Process for refining sugar. He won several patents for a way
to refine sugar in a process that later came to be called
multiple-effect distillation.
(Econ, 6/7/08, p.24)(www.aalbc.com/books/black7.htm)
1848 Aug 15, M. Waldo Hanchett
patented a dental chair.
(MC, 8/15/02)
1949 Feb 24, A V-2 WAC-Corporal
was the 1st rocket to outer space. It was fired at White Sands, NM, and
reached 400 km.
(MC, 2/24/02)
1849 Mar 27, Joseph Couch patented
a steam-powered percussion rock drill.
(MC, 3/27/02)
1849 May 29, A patent for lifting
vessels was granted to Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln said: "You can fool
some of the people all of the time, & some of the people some of
time, but you can't fool all of the people all of time"
(HN, 5/29/98)(SC, 5/29/02)
1849 Apr 10, Walter Hunt, a
mechanic, patented the safety pin in NYC. He sold rights for $100.
Hunt’s other inventions included a new stove, paper collar,
ice-breaking boat, fountain pen and nail-making machine.
(SFC, 7/14/99, p.3)(SFC, 4/1/00, p.B4)(MC, 4/10/02)
1849 Dec 28, M. Jolly-Bellin
discovered dry-cleaning, he accidentally upset a lamp containing
turpentine and oil on his filthy clothing and saw a cleaning effect.
(MC, 12/28/01)
1850 Jul 14, The 1st public
demonstration of ice made by refrigeration took place. James Harrison
of Australia designed an ice-making machine. It was an improvement on
one invented by Jacob Perkins in 1834.
(MC, 7/14/02)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R14)
1850 Aug 28, The English Channel
telegraph cable was laid between Dover and Cap Gris Nez.
(HTnet, 8/28/99)
1850 The US Supreme Court opined
that an invention had to be something more than the work of a
skilled mechanic to qualify for a patent.
(Econ, 5/5/07, p.78)
1851 May 6, Dr. John Gorrie
patented a "refrigeration machine."
(MC, 5/6/02)
1851 May 6, Linus Yale patented
his Yale lock.
(MC, 5/6/02)
1851 May 18, The
Amsterdam-Nieuwediep telegraph connection linked.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1851 Nov 11, Alvan Clark patented
a telescope.
(MC, 11/11/01)
1852 Elisha Graves Otis invented a
safety elevator in Yonkers, NY. Otis invented the safety elevator to
brake the car to a halt if the supporting cable broke. Otis Steam
Elevator Works made its 1st sale in 1854 to P.T. Barnum for display at
the New York’s World Fair. In 1889 (the same year Eiffel built his
Tower) the elevator met electricity. United Technologies acquired Otis
in 1976. In 2001 Jason Goodwin authored "Otis, Giving Rise to the
Modern City."
(HT, 5/97, p.23)(HNQ, 4/21/01)(WSJ, 10/9/01,
p.A20)(ON, 5/05, p.12)
1854 Feb 11, Major streets were
lit by coal gas for 1st time.
(MC, 2/11/02)
1854 Mar 7, Charles Miller
patented the 1st US sewing machine to stitch buttonholes.
(MC, 3/7/02)
1854 May 30, Vermont native
Elisha Graves Otis (1811-1861) unveiled his invention, the safety
elevator at the New York World's Fair. Audiences gasped as Otis, riding
on the hoist's platform, dramatically ordered the lifting rope cut.
Instead of falling, the car locked safely into the elevator shaft.
Prior to the 1850s there was no existing market for passenger elevators
because there was no safety mechanism in the event of a cable break. In
1852 Otis was a master mechanic working at a bedstead factory in
Yonkers, N.Y., when he built a hoisting machine with two sets of metal
teeth at the car's sides. If the lifting rope broke, the teeth would
lock into place, preventing the car from falling. Otis never realized
the potential of his invention. His sons built the Otis Elevator
Company, enabling the skylines of cities throughout the world to be
transformed with skyscrapers.
(HNPD, 5/30/99)(ON, 5/05, p.12)
1854 Aug 29, Daniel Halladay
patented a self-governing windmill.
(MC, 8/29/01)
1854 The first lighthouse on
Fastnet rock off of southwest Ireland was completed. Work on a
replacement began in 1896. In 2004 James Morrissey authored “A History
of the Fastnet Lighthouse.”
(Econ, 12/20/08, p.100)
1855 Mar 27, Abraham Gesner
patented kerosene.
(HN, 3/27/98)
1855 Oct 9, Isaac Singer patented
sewing machine motor.
(MC, 10/9/01)
1855 Oct 9, Joshua Stoddard of
Worcester, Mass., patented the 1st calliope.
(MC, 10/9/01)
1855 Oct 17, The Bessemer steel
making process was patented.
(MC, 10/17/01)
1856 Oct 7, Cyrus Chambers Jr.
patented a folding machine that folded books and newspapers.
(MC, 10/7/01)
1856 William Thomson, later Lord
Kelvin, discovered the property of magneto-resistance. The change in
some materials of electrical resistance under a magnetic field was
later used in data storage systems.
(Econ, 3/31/07, p.89)
1857 Jan 6, Patent for reducing
zinc ore was granted to Samuel Wetherill in Penn.
(MC, 1/6/02)
1857 Mar 23, Elisha Otis installed
the first modern passenger elevator in the 5-story Haughwout and Co.
building at 488 Broadway in New York City.
(www.theelevatormuseum.org/h/h-2.htm)(ON, 5/05, p.12)
1857 Jun 2, James Gibbs, Va.,
patented a chain-stitch single-thread sewing machine.
(SC, 6/2/02)
1857 Sep 15, Timothy Alden of NYC
patented a typesetting machine.
(www.todayinsci.com/)
1858 Feb 21, Edwin T. Holmes
installed the 1st electric burglar alarm in Boston, Mass.
(MC, 2/21/02)
1858 Mar 2, Frederick Cook, New
Orleans, patented a cotton-bale metallic tie.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1858 Mar 30, Hyman L. Lipman of
Philadelphia patented the pencil with an eraser attached on one end.
(HN, 3/30/98)(SFC, 9/16/98, Z1 p.6)
1858 Jul 6, Lyman Blake patented a
shoe manufacturing machine.
(MC, 7/6/02)
1858 Aug 5, Cyrus W. Field
completed the first transatlantic cable. It linked Newfoundland to
Ireland. The cable burned out after several weeks of use.
(www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/cable/peopleevents/e_inquiry.html)(AP, 8/5/08)
1858 Sep 1, The 1st transatlantic
cable failed after less than 1 month.
(SC, 9/1/02)
1858 Oct 26, Hamilton Smith
patented rotary washing machine.
(MC, 10/26/01)
1859 Jul 12, William Goodale
patented a paper bag manufacturing machine in Mass.
(MC, 7/12/02)
1859 Sep 1, The 1st Pullman
sleeping car went into service. George M. Pullman began outfitting
railroad cars. His company was incorporated in 1867.
(SFC, 7/1/98, Z1 p.6)(MC, 9/1/02)
1859 Sep 20, George Simpson
patented the electric range.
(MC, 9/20/01)
1859 Gaston Plante, French
physicist, invented the first lead-acid rechargeable battery.
(Econ, 3/8/08, TQ p.23)(Econ, 3/7/09, TQ p.4)
1860 Mar 27, M.L. Byrn patented a
"covered gimlet screw with a 'T' handle" (corkscrew).
(MC, 3/27/02)
1860 Jul 1, Charles Goodyear
(b.1800), inventor or the vulcanization process for rubber, died. In
2002 Charles Slack authored "Noble Obsession" an account of his quest
to develop a form of rubber impervious to high temperatures.
(WSJ, 7/31/02,
p.D10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Goodyear)
1860 Parisian inventor
Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville captured 10-second clip of a woman
singing "Au Clair de la Lune,” using a phonautograph, a device that
created visual recordings of sound waves.
(AP, 3/28/08)
1860s Ernest Michaux, a Parisian
blacksmith, invented the “velocipede,” a 2-wheeled machine with pedals
to drive the front wheel. It used wooded wheels and was nicknamed “the
boneshaker.”
(WSJ, 10/22/04, p.A1)
1861 Jan 15, Elisha Otis received
patent # 31,128 for his steam elevator.
(www.sterlingelevatorcons.com/history.htm)
1861 Feb 5, The kinematoscope was
patented by Coleman Sellers in Philadelphia.
(MC, 2/5/02)
1861 Apr 8, Elisha Graves Otis
(50), US elevator builder (Otis), died.
(www.famousamericans.net/elishagravesotis/)
1861 Dec 5, Gatling gun was
patented. [see Oct 30, 1862, Nov 3, 1862]
(MC, 12/5/01)
1862 Apr 8, John D. Lynde patented
an aerosol dispenser.
(MC, 4/8/02)
1862 Oct 30, Dr. Richard Gatling
patented a machine gun. [see Dec 5, 1861, Nov 3, 1862]
(MC, 10/30/01)
1862 Nov 3, Dr. Richard Gatling
patented machine gun in Indianapolis. [see Dec 5, 1861, Oct 30, 1862]
(MC, 11/3/01)
1862 Dec 29, The bowling ball was
invented.
(MC, 12/29/01)
1863 Jan 13, Thomas Crapper
pioneered a one-piece pedestal flushing toilet.
(MC, 1/13/02)
1863 Feb 9, A fire extinguisher
was patented by Alanson Crane.
(MC, 2/9/02)
1863 Apr 14, William Bullock
patented a continuous-roll printing press.
(MC, 4/14/02)
1863 Nov 23, A patent was granted
for a process of making color photographs.
(MC, 11/23/01)
1864 Mar 1, Louis Ducos du Hauron
patented a movie machine that was never built.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1865 Aug 2, A trans Atlantic Cable
being laid by SS Great Eastern snapped and was lost.
(MC, 8/2/02)
1866 Mar 27, Andrew Rankin
patented the urinal.
(MC, 3/27/02)
1866 Jul 27, Cyrus W. Field
finished laying out the first successful underwater telegraph cable
between North America and Europe. A previous cable in 1858 burned out
after only a few weeks of use.
(AP, 7/27/08)
1866 Oct 2, J. Osterhoudt patented
a tin can with key opener.
(MC, 10/2/01)
1867 Jul 16, D.R. Averill patented
a ready-mixed paint.
(MC, 7/16/02)
1867 Jul 16, Joseph Monier
patented reinforced concrete.
(MC, 7/16/02)
1867 Nov 25, Alfred Nobel patented
dynamite.
(MC, 11/25/01)
1867 Edward Calahan of American
Telegraph Company developed the first stock ticker.
(WSJ, 12/29/07, p.A8)
1867 Ernest Michaux, a Parisian
blacksmith, added pedals and brakes to an iron “velocipede,” a
2-wheeled machine that used wooded wheels and was nicknamed “the
boneshaker.”
(WSJ, 10/22/04, p.A1)(Econ, 2/5/05, p.77)
1868 Jan 16, The refrigerated
railroad car was patented by William Davis, a fish dealer in Detroit.
(MC, 1/16/02)
1868 Mar 5, A stapler was patented
in England by C.H. Gould.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1868 Jul 14, Alvin J. Fellows
patented a tape measure.
(MC, 7/14/02)
1869 Oct 16, A hotel in Boston
became the 1st to have indoor plumbing.
(MC, 10/16/01)
1868 Oct 11, Thomas Edison
patented his 1st invention, an electric voice machine.
(MC, 10/11/01)
1868 Nov 23, Louis Ducos du Hauron
patented trichrome color photo process.
(MC, 11/23/01)
1868 Matthew Boulton obtained a
British patent on a design for ailerons as control surfaces.
(NPub, 2002, p.5)
1869 Feb 2, James Oliver invented
the removable tempered steel plow blade.
(MC, 2/2/02)
1869 Apr 6, John and Isaiah Hyatt
applied for a new patent using collodion to manufacture billiard balls.
They later named their product celluloid. It was similar to that made
by English inventor Alexander Parkes, who patented the process in
England in 1855. The new plastic could be molded and mass produced, but
was very flammable and exploded when struck with excessive force. [see
Jun 15]
(HNQ, 5/8/98)(WSJ, 1/11/98, p.R18)(MC, 4/6/02)(PCh,
1992, p.467)(ON, 11/03, p.3)
1869 Apr 13, Steam power brake was
patented by George Westinghouse.
(MC, 4/13/02)
1869 Aug 10, O.B. Brown patented a
moving picture projector.
(MC, 8/10/02)
1869 Jun 8, Ives W. McGaffey of
Chicago patented the 1st vacuum cleaner.
(MC, 6/8/02)
1869 Dec 28, William Finley Semple
of Mount Vernon, Ohio, patented chewing gum.
(MC, 12/28/01)
1871 Jan 17, The 1st cable car
patented by Andrew S. Hallidie. It began service in 1873.
(MC, 1/17/02)
1871 Dec 19, Albert L. Jones
patented corrugated paper in NYC.
(MC, 12/19/01)
1871 Russian chemist Dmitri
Mendeleyev developed the periodic classification system of the
elements, presenting a periodic table listing the elements in 1871.
Born in Siberia, the last of 17 children, Mendeleyev eventually found
success in academia. While writing a basic textbook on chemistry in the
1860s, he attempted to find a way to classify the elements. His
periodic system gained acceptance over time. His periodic table left
gaps for elements as yet undiscovered, but he correctly predicted the
properties of three of those elements. The table and his concepts of
periodic law gained more acceptance with the approach of the 20th
century, forming the basis for modern chemistry.
(HNQ, 1/4/01)
1872 Feb 20, A hydraulic electric
elevator was patented by Cyrus Baldwin.
(MC, 2/20/02)
1872 Feb 20, Luther Crowell
patented a machine for manufacturing paper bags.
(MC, 2/20/02)
1872 Feb 20, Silas Noble and JP
Cooley patented a toothpick manufacturing machine.
(MC, 2/20/02)
1872 Mar 5, George Westinghouse
Jr. patented triple air brake for trains.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1872 Mar 26, Thomas J. Martin
patented a fire extinguisher.
(SS, 3/26/02)
1872 Apr 2, George B. Brayton
patented a gasoline powered engine.
(MC, 4/2/02)
1872 Jul 20, Mahlon Loomis
patented a wireless radio.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1872 Aug 1, The first
long-distance gas pipeline in the U.S. was completed. Designed for
natural gas, the two-inch pipe ran five miles from Newton Wells to
Titusville, Pennsylvania.
(HN, 8/1/00)
1872 Oct 29, J.S. Risdon patented
a metal windmill.
(MC, 10/29/01)
1873 Aug 2, Inventor Andrew S.
Hallidie successfully tested a cable car he had designed for the city
of San Francisco. Various references give the date of this event as
Aug. 1, but more recent research points to Aug. 2. Hallidie made the
first cable car trip aboard his Nob Hill Line at 4 a.m. It traveled
down Clay St. from Knob Hill to Kearney.
(SFC, 8/1/98, p.A16)(AP, 8/2/06)
1873 Aug 26, Lee De Forest
(d.1961), inventor of the audion vacuum tube, was born in Council
bluffs, Iowa. He is considered the father of radio.
(WUD, 1994 p.379)( http://www.britannica.com)
1873 Nov 4, Dentist John Beers of
SF patented the gold crown.
(MC, 11/4/01)
1874 Aug 11, Harry S. Parmelee
patented a sprinkler head.
(MC, 8/11/02)
1875 Jan 26, Electric dental drill
was patented by George F. Green.
(MC, 1/26/02)
1875 Feb 4, Ludwig Prandtl,
physicist (father of aerodynamics), was born in Germany.
(MC, 2/4/02)
1875 Alexander Graham Bell
traveled to Washington and filed patent applications for the multiple
telegraph and the autograph telegraph.
(ON, 1/03, p.2)
1875 Jun 2, Alexander Graham Bell
made his 1st complex sound transmission.
(ON, 1/03, p.2)
1875 Nov 16, William Bonwill
patented dental mallet to impact gold into cavities.
(MC, 11/16/01)
1876 Feb 19, Gardiner Hubbard
submitted Alexander Graham Bell's patent application for a telephone.
(ON, 1/03, p.4)
1876 Mar 7, Patent #174,465 was
issued to Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922) for his telephone. In 2008
Seth Shulman authored “The Telephone Gambit,” the story behind
Alexander Graham Bell’s 1876 telephone patent #174,465. Shulman made a
case that Bell stole the critical technology for making the telephone
work from Elisha Gray, who had filed his own papers just hours after
Bell.
(SFEM, 1/11/98, p.12)(HN, 3/7/98)(AP, 3/7/98)(WSJ,
1/16/08, p.D10)
1876 Mar 10, Alexander Graham Bell
made what was, in effect, the first telephone call. He found a
way of converting words into electrical current and back again and sent
his first message using his new variable-liquid resistance transmitter.
Bell's telephone caused the current to vary smoothly in proportion to
the pressure created on a microphone by human speech and got a patent.
His assistant, in an adjoining room in Boston, heard Bell say over the
experimental device: "Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you." On a
page from his notebook, dated March 10, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell
described the first successful experiment with the telephone. Bell
wrote: "I then shouted into M (the mouthpiece) the following sentence:
‘Mr. Watson—come here—I want to see you.’ To my delight he came and
declared that he had heard and understood what I said."
(I&I, Penzias, p.97)(CFA, '96, p.42)(SFEM,
1/11/98, p.12)(AP, 3/10/98)(HN, 3/10/98)(HNPD, 3/10/99)
1876 Jun 25, Alexander Graham Bell
demonstrated his telephone at the Centennial Exposition in
Philadelphia. Brazil's Emperor Dom Pedro was among the witnesses.
(SFC, 2/3/97, p.D1)(ON, 1/03, p.5)
1876 Dec 5, Daniel Stillson (Mass)
patented the 1st practical pipe wrench.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1876 Halcyon Skinner, American
inventor, perfected the Axminster loom.
(SFCM, 10/10/04, p.8)
1877 Feb 12, The 1st news dispatch
by telephone was made between Boston and Salem, Mass.
(MC, 2/12/02)
1877 Jul 18, Thomas Edison
recorded the human voice for the first time. He shouted “Haloo” into a
mouthpiece and played back a moving tape.
(HN, 7/18/01)(ON, 2/07, p.11)
1877 Nov 21, Inventor Thomas A.
Edison announced the invention of his phonograph.
(V.D.-H.K.p.270)(AP, 11/21/97)
1877 Dec 6, Thomas A. Edison made
the first sound-recording when he recited "Mary had a Little Lamb" into
his phonograph machine.
(HN, 12/6/98)
1877 Dec 24, Thomas A. Edison
filed a patent application for his phonograph machine.
(HN, 12/6/98)
1877 The Bell Telephone Co. was
formed.
(SFC, 7/23/04, p.C1)
1877 Erastus Bigelow introduced a
machine-made broadloom carpet in the US.
(SFCM, 10/10/04, p.8)
1877 William Voss and his brothers
Fred and John Voss established the Voss Bros. Manufacturing Co. in
Davenport, Iowa. Voss had invented one of the first washing machines
with early models operated by a hand crank or foot pedal. Voss
motor-driven machines were introduced in 1905. during the Depression
Voss washing machines sold for $39.95.
(SFC, 1/21/09, p.G4)
1878 Jan 28, The 1st telephone
exchange was established at New Haven, Conn.
(AP, 1/28/04)
1878 Feb 19, Thomas Edison
received a U.S. patent for "an improvement in phonograph or speaking
machines."
(AP, 2/19/07)
1878 Oct 18, Edison made
electricity available for household usage.
(MC, 10/18/01)
1878 Dec 26, The 1st US store to
install electric lights was in Philadelphia.
(MC, 12/26/01)
1878 Lyman C. Byce, Petaluma
poultry pioneer, began experimenting with an incubator to hatch baby
chicks.
(Ind, 4/26/03, p.5A)
1878 The 1st electric street
lights were deployed alongside Holburn Viaduct in London, England.
(Econ, 12/1/07, p.79)
1879 Feb 5, Joseph Swan
demonstrated a light bulb using carbon glow.
(MC, 2/5/02)
1879 May 31, 1st electric railway
opened at the Berlin Trades Exposition.
(MC, 5/31/02)
1879 Sep 23, Richard Rhodes
invented a hearing aid called the Audiophone.
(MC, 9/23/01)
1879 Oct 21, Thomas Edison
perfected his carbonized cotton filament light bulb after 14 months of
testing at his laboratory in Menlo Park, N.J. It was the first
incandescent electric lamp. The bulb burned for about 13 ½ hours.
(AP, 10/21/97)(HN, 10/21/02)(AH, 10/04, p.15)
1879 Dec 31, Thomas Edison first
publicly demonstrated his electric incandescent light in Menlo Park,
N.J.
(AP, 12/31/97)
1879 James Ritty
(1836-1918) and his brother invented the 1st cash register. It was to
combat stealing by bartenders in his Dayton, Ohio, saloon. The first
model looked like a clock, but instead of the hands indicating hours
and minutes, they indicated dollars and cents. Behind the dial two
adding discs accumulated the total of the amounts recorded. Known as
"the incorruptible cashier," with no cash drawer, it would show anyone
within sight how much had been recorded. They received a patent Jan 30,
1883.
(www.inventors.about.com)(www.uspto.gov/go/kids/kidjan.htm)
1879 Photogravure was invented. It
involved the transfer of photographic images onto a copper plate by
acid-etching. The plate is then inked and pressed by hand onto artist's
paper for a print of exceptional detail.
(WSJ, 1/28/99, p.A1)
1879 George Eastman of Rochester,
New York, devised a ready-to-use dry plate for photography. Eastman
sought to improve the chemistry and the processes of photography that
had, for 40 years, required subjects to remain perfectly still for
exposure times of up to a minute.
(HN, 7/12/99)
1880 Jan 21, 1st US sewage
disposal system, separate from storm drains, was established in Memphis.
(MC, 1/21/02)
1880 Jan 27, Thomas Edison
received a patent for his electric incandescent lamp.
(AP, 1/27/98)
1880 Mar 23, John Stevens of
Neenah, Wis., patented the grain crushing mill. This mill allowed flour
production to increase by 70 percent.
(HN, 3/23/98)
1880 Mar 31, Wabash, Ind., became
the first town completely illuminated by electrical lighting.
(AP, 3/31/97)(HN, 3/31/98)
1880 Jul 23, 1st commercial
hydroelectric power planet began in Grand Rapids, Mich.
(MC, 7/23/02)
1880 Aug 24, Joshua L. Cowen,
inventor of the electric train, was born.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1880 Oct 5, The first ball-point
pen was patented on this day by Alonzo T. Cross.
(HN, 10/5/00)
1880 James Albert Bonsack
(1859-1924) invented the first cigarette rolling machine. He received 2
patents for it in 1881. Bonsack's machine was able to produce 120,000
cigarettes in ten hours, revolutionizing the cigarette industry. In
2007 Allan M. Brandt authored “The Cigarette Century: The Rise and
Fall, and Deadly Persistence of the Product that Defined America.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Albert_Bonsack)
1881 May 16, World's 1st electric
tram went into service in Lichterfelder near Berlin.
(MC, 5/16/02)
1881 Sep 13, Lewis Latimer
invented and patented an electric lamp with a carbon filament.
(MC, 9/13/01)
1881 Oct 11, David Houston
patented roll film for cameras.
(MC, 10/11/01)
1882 Mar 9, False teeth were
patented. [see 1822]
(MC, 3/9/02)
1882 Apr 3, Wood block alarm was
invented. When alarm rang it dropped 20 wood blocks.
(MC, 4/3/02)
1882 Sep 4, Thomas Edison
displayed the first practical electrical lighting system. He
successfully turned on the lights in a one square mile area of New York
City with the world’s 1st electricity generating plant.
(MC, 9/4/01)(WSJ, 9/17/01, p.R6)
1882 Edison Electric installed a
power grid in Manhattan that wrecked telephone reception.
(SFEM, 1/11/98, p.13)
1883 Feb 8, Louis Waterman began
experiments to invent fountain pen.
(MC, 2/8/02)
1883 Feb 27, Oscar Hammerstein
patented the 1st cigar-rolling machine.
(MC, 2/27/02)
1883 Mar 19, Jan Matzeliger
invented the 1st machine to manufacture entire shoes.
(MC, 3/19/02)
1883 Mar 24, Long-distance
telephone service was inaugurated between Chicago and New York. [see
Mar 27, 1884]
(AP, 3/23/97)
1884 Mar 27, The first
long-distance telephone call was made, between Boston and New York
City. [see Mar 24, 1883]
(AP, 3/27/97)(HN, 3/27/98)
1884 May 29, 1st steam cable trams
started in Highgate.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1884 Herman Hollerith, a
German-American, found a way to store information through holes on
cards.
(WSJ, 3/21/00, p.A20)
1885 Mar 20, John Matzeliger of
Suriname patented a shoe lacing machine.
(MC, 3/20/02)
1885 Mar 26, The Eastman Film Co.
of Rochester, N.Y., manufactured the first commercial motion picture
film. George Eastman had perfected a method for bonding photographic
emulsion onto thin strips of celluloid.
(AP, 3/25/98)(HN, 3/25/98)(ON, 11/03, p.5)
1885 Aug 29, Gottlieb Daimler
received a German patent for a motorcycle.
(MC, 8/29/01)
1886 Jan 26, Karl Benz patented
the 1st automobile. [see Jan 29]
(MC, 1/26/02)
1886 Jan 29, 1st successful
gasoline-driven car was patented by Karl Benz in Karlsruhe. [see Jan 26]
(MC, 1/29/02)
1886 Feb 23, An aluminum
manufacturing process was developed.
(MC, 2/23/02)
1886 Mar 6, The 1st US alternating
current power plant started in Great Barrington, MA.
(MC, 3/6/02)
1886 Sep 14, George K. Anderson of
Memphis, Tennessee, patented typewriter ribbon.
(http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bltypewriter.htm)
1886 Nov 30, 1st commercially
successful AC electric power plant opened in Buffalo.
(MC, 11/30/01)
1886 LaVerne Noyes (1849-1919)
invented his akromotor, a device that converted wind to electricity and
proved to be immensely useful to American farmers.
(http://eos.lib.uchicago.edu/e/spcl/excat/donors2.html#d)
1887 Mar 8, Everett Horton of
Connecticut patented a fishing rod of telescoping steel tubes.
(MC, 3/8/02)
1887 May 2, Hannibal W. Goodwin
patented celluloid photographic film.
(MC, 5/2/02)
1887 Aug 2, Rowell Hodge patented
barbed wire.
(MC, 8/2/02)
1887 Aug 31, Inventor Thomas A.
Edison received a patent for his Kinetoscope," a device which produced
moving pictures. [see Apr 14, 1894]
(AP, 8/31/97)
1887 Oct 11, A. Miles patented the
elevator.
(MC, 10/11/01)
1887 Nov 8, Emile Berliner, a
German immigrant working in Washington D.C., patented his gramophone, a
successful system of sound recording. Berliner was the first inventor
to stop recording on cylinders and start recording on flat disks or
records.
(http://inventors.about.com/od/gstartinventions/a/gramophone.htm)
1887 Frank Brownell, the maker of
George Eastman’s roll holder, created for Eastman a simple box camera.
Eastman named it “Kodak” and patented the name with the camera. [see
1888]
(ON, 3/05, p.12)
1888 May 7, George Eastman
patented his Kodak box camera.
(MC, 5/7/02)
1888 Jul 23, John Boyd Dunlop
applied to patent a pneumatic tire.
(MC, 7/23/02)
1888 Jul, Harold P. Brown, on
behalf of Thomas Edison, zapped dogs at Columbia College to demonstrate
the supposed danger of alternating current, a mode of power favored by
Edison’s rival George Westinghouse. The NY state legislature had
recently designated electrocution as the official means for capital
punishment.
(SFEC, 3/22/98, p.A26)(ON, 10/04, p.7)
1888 Aug 7, Theophilus Van Kannel
of Philadelphia received a patent for the revolving door.
(HN, 8/7/00)
1888 Aug 13, John Logie Baird,
inventor (father of TV), was born in Scotland.
(MC, 8/13/02)
1888 Sep 7, An incubator was used
for the first time on a premature infant.
(HN, 9/7/98)
1888 Oct 30, John J. Loud patented
a ballpoint pen.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1888 Oct 31, John Boyd Dunlop
patented a pneumatic bicycle tire.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1888 Apr 24, Eastman Kodak was
formed. The company produced the Kodak Camera: “You press the button –
we do the rest.”
(HN, 4/24/98)(WSJ, 1/22/04, p.A1)(WSJ, 8/2/06, p.B10)
1889 Jan 8, Dr. Herman Hollerith
(1860-1929), statistician for the US Census Bureau, received the 1st US
patent for a tabulating machine. It resembled Charles Babagge’s
Analytical Engine, but used electromagnetic relays instead of metal
gears.
(www.answers.com/topic/herman-hollerith)(ON, 5/05,
p.7)
1889 Mar 8, Jens/John Ericsson
(85), Swedish-US, engineer (fire extinguisher), died.
(MC, 3/8/02)
1889
Apr 1, The first dishwashing machine was marketed (in Chicago).
(OTD)
1889 Apr 6, George Eastman placed
the Kodak Camera on sale for 1st time.
(MC, 4/6/02)
1889 Aug 10, Dan Rylands patented
a screw cap.
(MC, 8/10/02)
1889 Aug 13, The first
coin-operated telephone was patented by William Gray of Hartford, Conn.
A foreman had refused to let Gray call his sick wife from the company
phone.
(SFEC, 10/22/00, Z1 p.2)(AP, 8/13/08)
1889 Aug 23, The 1st ship-to-shore
wireless message was received in US in SF.
(MC, 8/23/02)
1889 Dec 24, Daniel Stover and
William Hance patented a bicycle with back pedal brake.
(MC, 12/24/01)
1890 Nov 11, D. McCree patented a
portable fire escape.
(MC, 11/11/01)
1890 Aug 6, Convicted murderer
William Kemmler became the 1st person to be executed in the electric
chair. He was put to death at Auburn State Prison in New York for
murdering his lover, Matilda Ziegler, with an axe. In 2003 Jill Jonnes
authored "Empires of Light," and account of how Edison, Tesla and
Westinghouse brought electric power to public use. In 2003 Mark Essig
authored "Edison and the Electric Chair: A Story of Light and Death."
(AP, 8/6/97)(HN, 8/6/98)(MC, 8/6/02)(WSJ, 8/19/03,
p.D5)(Econ, 9/20/03, p.81)
1891
Apr 1, The London-Paris telephone connection opened.
(OTD)
1891 Aug 24, Thomas Edison filed a
patent for the motion picture camera.
(HN, 8/24/98)
1891 Nov 10, Granville T. Woods
patented an electric railway.
(MC, 11/10/01)
1891 Dec 29, Edison patented the
"transmission of signals electrically" (radio).
(MC, 12/29/01)
1891 The Thomas Houston Electric
Co., the Thomas Houston International Electric Co., and Edison General
Electric merged. Houston had made its fortune selling AC powered arc
lights for city streets. In 1892 the new company was incorporated as
General Electric.
(WSJ, 5/28/96, p. R-45)(ON, 10/04, p.8)
1892 Jan 5, The 1st successful
auroral photograph made.
(MC, 1/5/02)
1892 Feb 2, Bottle cap with cork
seal was patented by William Painter in Baltimore.
(MC, 2/2/02)
1892 Mar 15, Jesse W. Reno,
inventor, patented the 1st escalator in NYC.
(MC, 3/15/02)
1892 Apr 12, George C.
Blickensderfer received the first US patent for a portable typewriter.
(www.todayinsci.com/4/4_12.htm)
1892 May 19, Charles Brady King of
Detroit invented the pneumatic hammer. [see Jan 30, 1894]
(DTnet, 5/19/97)
1892 May 20, George Sampson
patented a clothes dryer.
(MC, 5/20/02)
1892 May 22, Dr. Washington
Sheffield invented toothpaste tube.
(MC, 5/22/02)
1892 Jul 5, Andrew Beard was
issued a patent for the rotary engine.
(HN, 7/5/98)
1892 Aug 2, Charles A. Wheeler
patented a prototype of the escalator. [see Mar 15]
(MC, 8/2/02)
1892 Sep 26, The Diamond Match Co.
patented book matches. [see Sep 27]
(MC, 9/26/01)
1892 Sep 27, Book matches were
patented by Diamond Match Company. [see Sep 26]
(MC, 9/27/01)
1892 Oct 18, The first
long-distance telephone line between Chicago and New York was formally
opened. It could only handle one call at a time.
(AP, 10/18/07)
1892 Dec 20, Pneumatic automobile
tire was patented in Syracuse, NY.
(MC, 12/20/01)
1892 The 1st electrical hearing
aid was invented. It weighed several pounds.
(SSFC, 5/13/01, Par p.4)
1893 Feb 28, Edward Acheson of
Pennsylvania, patented an abrasive he named "carborundum."
(MC, 2/28/02)
1893 Mar 27, The American Bell
telephone Company made its first long distance telephone call to its
branch office in New York.
(HN, 3/27/99)
1893 Aug 1, A machine for making
shredded wheat breakfast cereal was patented.
(HN, 8/1/00)
1893 Aug 29, The “clasp locker,” a
clumsy slide fastener and forerunner to the zipper was first patented
by Whitcomb L. Judson. He demonstrated it at the World's Columbian
Exposition in Chicago. He invented an improved C-Curity fastener in
1902.
(Wired, Dec., ‘95, p.138)(SFEC, 6/6/99, Z1 p.10)(ON,
7/04, p.3)
1893 Dec 5, 1st electric car was
built in Toronto. It could go 15 miles between charges.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1893 Dec 24, Henry Ford completed
his 1st useful gas motor.
(MC, 12/24/01)
1893 The first electric bread
toasters were made in England about this time.
(SFC, 1/23/08, p.G4)
1894 Jan 30, Pneumatic hammer was
patented by Charles King of Detroit. [see May 19, 1892]
(MC, 1/30/02)
1894 Apr 14, Thomas Edison made
his first public showing of the kinetoscope. The first Kinetoscope
Parlor opened in New York City where you could view moving film through
a magnifying lens. Thomas Edison invented the Kinetograph in 1889, a
cinema camera that utilized celluloid roll film that had been developed
by George Eastman in 1888. The Kinetoscope, developed by Edison in
1891, was a peephole viewer in which the developed film moved
continuously under a magnifying glass. The Cinematographe and Vitascope
were later machines that actually projected images onto a screen. The
Stroboscope and Phenakistoscope were devices developed in 1832,
pre-dating photography, that attempted to show apparent motion from a
series of drawings on a revolving disc.
(HN, 4/14/98)(HNQ, 2/17/00)
1894 Sep, Guglielmo Marconi,
Italian engineer, built his first radio equipment. By the end of this
month he could flit a switch and make a bell ring at the other end of
his attic workspace. Originally, radio or radiotelegraphy was called
'wireless telegraphy', which was shortened to 'wireless'. The prefix
radio- in the sense of wireless transmission was first recorded in the
word radioconductor, coined by the French physicist Edouard Branly in
1897.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R14)(ON, 11/99,
p.9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio)
1894 Oct 30, Daniel Cooper
patented a time clock.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1895 Feb 13, A moving picture
projector was patented.
(MC, 2/13/02)
1895 Feb 26, Michael Owens of
Toledo, OH., patented a glass-blowing machine.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1895 Nov 5, George B. Selden of
Rochester, N.Y., received the first U.S. patent for a gasoline-driven
automobile.
(AP, 11/5/97)(MC, 11/5/01)
1895 Nov 8, Wilhelm Konrad von
Röntgen (50), German physicist, discovered X-rays.
(ON, 11/04,
p.6)(www.slac.stanford.edu/pubs/beamline/25/2/25-2-assmus.pdf)
1896 Jan 12, The 1st X-ray photo
on record in the US was made by Dr. Henry Louis Smith at Davidson, NC.
Dr. Henry Smith shot a bullet into the hand of a dead human body and
made a 15 minute x-ray exposure to reveal the bullet.
(SFEC, 6/14/98, Z1 p.8)(MC, 1/12/02)
1896 Jun 30, W.S. Hadaway patented
an electric stove.
(MC, 6/30/02)
1896 Aug 11, Harvey Hubbell
patented an electric light bulb socket with a pull chain.
(MC, 8/11/02)
1896 Aug 20, Dial telephone was
patented.
(MC, 8/20/02)
1897 May 14, Guglielmo Marconi
made the first communication by wireless telegraph.
(HN, 5/14/98)
1897 Aug 31, Thomas Edison
patented his movie camera (Kinetograph).
(MC, 8/31/01)
1897 Nov 15, The electricity plant
at Niagara Falls opened sending AC power 26 miles to Buffalo, NY. It
contained AC generators built by Westinghouse Electric and transformers
built by General Electric under license from Westinghouse Electric.
(ON, 10/04, p.8)
1897 Nov 23, A pencil sharpener
was patented by J.L. Love.
(MC, 11/23/01)
1897 Dec 16, The 1st submarine
with an internal combustion engine was demonstrated.
(MC, 12/16/01)
1898 Feb 8, John Ames Sherman
patented the 1st envelope folding & gumming machine in Mass.
(MC, 2/8/02)
1898 Jul 13, Guglielmo Marconi
patented his radio.
(MC, 7/13/02)
1898 Aug 16, Edwin Prescott
patented a roller coaster.
(MC, 8/16/02)
1898 Sep 13, Hannibal Goodwin
patented celluloid photographic film.
(MC, 9/13/01)
1898 Otis Steam Elevator Works
merged with 14 other elevator makers to form the Otis Elevator Company.
It later became a subsidiary of United Technologies.
(ON, 5/05, p.12)
1899 Jan 24, The rubber heel was
patented by Humphrey O'Sullivan.
(MC, 1/24/02)
1899 Mar 27, The first
international radio transmission between England and France was
achieved by the Italian inventor G. Marconi.
(HN, 3/27/99)
1899 May 9, A lawn mower was
patented.
(MC, 5/9/02)
1899 Oct 3, J.S. Thurman patented
a motor-driven vacuum cleaner.
(MC, 10/3/01)
1899 Oct 10, I.R. Johnson patented
the bicycle frame.
(MC, 10/10/01)
1900 Jan 2, E. Verlinger began
manufacturing 7" single-sided records in Montreal.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1900 Apr 11, US Navy's 1st
submarine made its debut.
(MC, 4/11/02)
1900 Nov 30, A German engineer
patented front-wheel drive for automobiles.
(MC, 11/30/01)
1900 Nickel-cadmium battery cells
were developed about this time.
(Econ, 3/8/08, TQ p.23)
1900 Johan Vaaler, a Norwegian
living in Germany, invented the paper clip.
(SFEC, 5/23/99, p.B7)
1901 Aug 30, Hubert Cecil Booth
patented the vacuum cleaner. [see 1869]
(MC, 8/30/01)
1901 Dec 11, Marconi sent his 1st
transatlantic radio signal from Cornwall, England to Newfoundland,
Canada. The first transmission failed, but another the next day
succeeded.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/science/nature/1701461.stm)
1901 Dec 12, Italian scientist and
engineer Guglielmo Marconi received the first long-distance radio
transmission in St. John's, Newfoundland. Electrical engineer John
Ambrose Fleming transmitted the Morse code signal for "s" from across
the Atlantic Ocean in England and Marconi heard it--three short
clicks--through a radio speaker. Marconi had begun experimenting with
radiotelegraphy around 1895, and he realized that messages could be
transmitted over much greater distances by using grounded antennae on
the radio transmitter and receiver. A few years after the successful
transmission with Fleming, Marconi opened the first commercial wireless
telegraph service.
(HNPD, 12/12/98)
1901 The Victor Talking Machine
Co. was founded in Camden, NJ. It introduced the Victrola with an
internal horn, rather than an external one, in 1906. The company was
sold to RCA in 1929.
(SFC, 1/21/09, p.G4)
1902 Mar 25, Irving W. Colburn
patented a sheet glass drawing machine.
(MC, 3/25/02)
1903 Mar 10, Harry Gammeter of
Cleveland patented a multigraph duplicating machine.
(MC, 3/10/02)
1903 Mar 29, A regular news
service began between New York and London on Marconi's wireless.
(HN, 3/29/98)
1903 Nov 24, Clyde Coleman of NYC
patented an automobile electric starter.
(MC, 11/24/01)
1903 Dec 11, The first airplane
flight. The Wright brothers’ Flyer I flew for fifty-nine seconds at
Kitty Hawk. The brothers were the sons of a Dayton, Ohio, bishop
(Church of the United Brethren). A one-hour PBS documentary covers
their life as part of "The American Experience." [see Dec 17]
(CFA, ‘96, p.60)(TL-MB, 1988, 1988, p.104)(WSJ,
2/8/96, p.A-12)
1904 Sep 15, Wilbur Wright made
his 1st airplane flight.
(MC, 9/15/01)
1904 Nov 9, 1st airplane flight to
last more than 5 minutes.
(MC, 11/9/01)
1904 Nov 15, King C. Gillette
patented his Gillette razor blade.
(MC, 11/15/01)
1905 Apr 12, French Dufaux
brothers tested a helicopter.
(MC, 4/12/02)
1905 Einstein presented his theory
of relativity declaring that the very measurement of time intervals is
affected by the motion of the observer. He proposed that light is
itself quantized, or particle-like, to explain how electrons were
emitted when light hit certain metals. He presented four papers, the
first on Brownian motion, the second was on the composition of light,
the third proposed the Special Theory of Relativity, and the fourth
established the equivalence of mass and energy.
(NG, March 1990, J. Boslough p. 118), (NG, May 1985,
J. Boslough, p. 642), (V.D.-H.K.p.325-326)
1906 Apr 11, Einstein introduced
his Theory of Relativity. [see 1905]
(MC, 4/11/02)
1906 Aug 22, The 1st Victor
Victrola was manufactured.
(MC, 8/22/02)(SFC, 1/21/09, p.G4)
1906 Oct 20, Dr Lee DeForest
demonstrated his electrical vacuum tube (radio tube).
(MC, 10/20/01)
1906 Oct 25, US inventor Lee de
Forest patented the "Audion," a 3-diode amplification valve which
proved a pioneering development in radio and broadcasting.
(MC, 10/25/01)
1906 Charles F. Kettering designed
the first cash register powered by an electric motor.
(www.ncr.com/history/history.htm)
1907 Jan 15, 3-element vacuum tube
was patented by Dr. Lee De Forest.
(MC, 1/15/02)
1907 Jun 4, Automatic washer and
dryer was introduced.
(MC, 6/4/02)
1907 Jul 15, The London Electrobus
Company began picking up passengers in the world’s biggest trials of
battery-powered buses. The service collapsed in 1909. It suffered from
an investment scam led by Baron de Martigny, a Canadian music-hall
artist, the front man for Edward Lehwess, a German lawyer and
con-artist. In 1906 Lehwess had sold the company a worthless patent
that caused investors to demand the return of some 80,000 pounds.
(Econ, 9/8/07, TQ p.10)
1907 Leo Baekeland of Yonkers, NY,
invented Bakelite, a hard plastic. [see 1909]
(WSJ, 1/11/98, p.R18)
1907 Whiting & Davis Co. of
Plainville, Mass., established in 1896, developed a chain mail mesh
machine about this time and became the world’s largest manufacturer of
mesh products.
(SFC, 7/11/07,
p.G4)(http://bagladyemporium.com/BLU/index.php?n=Main.WhitingDavisCo)
1907 The phenomenon of
electroluminescence was first observed in a piece of Silicon Carbide
(SiC) by Henry Joseph Round (1881-1966), an English electronics
engineer.
(Econ, 9/23/06, TQ
p.26)(www.wavicle.biz/led_history.html)
1907 In France the physicist
Georges Claude discovered that high voltage electricity shot through
certain gases radiated color. He patented a neon tube in 1909.
(G&M, 7/31/97, p.A20)(SFEC, 5/23/99, p.B7)(SFEC,
8/13/00, p.T6)
1908 Jan 12, A wireless message
was sent long-distance for the first time from the Eiffel Tower in
Paris.
(HN, 1/12/99)
1908 Mar 2, Gabriel Lippman
introduced the new three-dimensional color photography at the Academy
of Sciences.
(HN, 3/2/99)
1908 May 12, Wireless Radio
Broadcasting was patented by Nathan B. Stubblefield.
(MC, 5/12/02)
1908 Dec 29, A patent was granted
for a 4-wheel automobile brake in Clintonville, Wisc.
(MC, 12/29/01)
1908 The US Supreme Court ruled
that player-piano rolls based on copyrighted music are not a copyright
violation but a piece of machinery.
(SFC, 4/8/02, p.E1)
1908 Gideon Sundback, Swedish-born
engineer working for the Automatic Hook and Eye Co. of Hoboken, New
Jersey, designed a new fastener, the “Plako,” for use in the placket of
a woman’s skirt.
(ON, 7/04, p.5)
1909 Jan 23, The 1st radio rescue
at sea took place.
(MC, 1/23/02)
1909 Feb 16, 1st subway car with
side doors went into service in NYC.
(MC, 2/16/02)
1909 Mar 18, Einar Dessau of
Denmark used a short-wave transmitter to converse with a government
radio post about six miles away in what is believed to have been the
first broadcast by a "ham" operator.
(AP, 3/18/97)
1909 Dec 7, Dr. Leo H. Baekeland
patented Bakelite, the 1st completely synthetic plastic thermosetting
plastic. [see 1907]
(HNQ, 5/8/98)(WSJ, 1/11/98, p.R18)(MC, 12/7/01)
1909 A US federal copyright law
was passed that allowed composers and music publishers to demand
royalty payments for any public performance of copyrighted material.
Protection was extended to player-piano rolls and the phonograph.
(WSJ, 8/21/96, p.A8)(SFC, 4/8/02, p.E1)
1910 Apr 2, Karl Harris perfected
the process for the artificial synthesis of rubber.
(HN, 4/2/98)
1910 Aug 27, Thomas Edison
demonstrated the first "talking" pictures using a phonograph in his New
Jersey laboratory.
(HN, 8/27/01)
1910 Sep 27, 1st test flight of a
twin-engined airplane was made in France.
(MC, 9/27/01)
1911 Jan 26, Glenn Curtiss piloted
the 1st successful hydroplane in San Diego.
(MC, 1/26/02)
1911 Oct 4, The 1st public
elevator began service at London's Earl's Court Metro Station.
(MC, 10/4/01)
1912 Apr 6, Cadillac adopted an
electric self-starter. Charles Franklin Kettering (1876-1958), as
president of Delco, introduced the electric-starter on the 1912
Cadillac.
(www.todayinsci.com/4/4_06.htm)(http://local.aaca.org/bntc/mileposts/1912.htm)
1912 Feb 14, The 1st US submarines
with diesel engines were commissioned at Groton, Ct.
(MC, 2/14/02)
1912 Apr 10, The first wireless
transmission was received on an airplane.
(HN, 4/10/98)
1912 Jul 16, A Naval torpedo,
launched from an airplane, was patented by B.A. Fiske.
(MC, 7/16/02)
1912 Harry C. Heath (d.1962)
invented a new siren capable of an instant blast. It was referred to as
the 1st-ever electric siren. A Heath-designed siren was used in the SF
Ferry Building from 1918-1972.
(SFC, 11/23/01, p.A22)
1913 Franz Schneider patented a
gun synchronizing device in Germany, France and Great Britain. In 1915
it was developed as the "Fokker Scourge" to fire bullets through an
airplanes propellers.
(ON, 10/02, p.8)
1913 Frank Shuman, American
inventor, created the first large solar pumping station in Meadi, Egypt.
(Econ, 6/6/09, TQ p.23)
1914 Apr 14, Stacy G. Carkhuff
patented a non-skid tire pattern.
(MC, 4/14/02)
1914 Apr 28, W.H. Carrier was
issued a patent for a method of “dew point control,” crucial to the
development of automatic air cooling systems. In 1923 he invented an
air-conditioning system powerful enough for installation at movie
theaters.
(http://dealscape.thedealblogs.com/2006/04/this_date_in_deal_history_firs.php)(ON,
8/07, p.11)
1914 Jul 29, Transcontinental
telephone service began with the first phone conversation between New
York and San Francisco.
(AP, 7/29/97)
1914 Oct 13, Garrett Morgan
invented and patented the gas mask.
(MC, 10/13/01)
1915 Jan 19, The neon tube sign
was patented by George Claude.
(MC, 1/19/02)
1915 Feb 7, 1st wireless message
sent from a moving train to a station was received.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1915 Feb 26, The 1st flame-thrower
was used by the Germans at Malancourt, Argonnen.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1915 May 24, Thomas Edison
invented the telescribe to record telephone conversations.
(MC, 5/24/02)
1915 Oct 19, The US Patent Office
granted John Van Wormer a patent for his "paper bottle." His patent was
later acquired by the American Paper Bottle Company. The first paper
milk carton was introduced in 1933.
(www.planetark.org/cartons/carthist.html)
1915 Oct 21, The 1st transatlantic
radio-telephone message was transmitted from Arlington, Va., to Paris.
(MC, 10/21/01)
1916 May 11, Einstein's Theory of
General Relativity was presented.
(MC, 5/11/02)
1916 Jul 9, The 1st cargo
submarine to cross Atlantic arrived in US from Germany.
(MC, 7/9/02)
1916 Sep 2, Two airborne planes
communicated directly by radio for the 1st time.
(SSFC, 12/14/03, p.D2)
1917 Mar 20, Gideon Sundback,
Swedish-born engineer, patented an all-purpose zipper while working for
the Automatic Hook and Eye Co. of Hoboken, New Jersey. The zipper name
was coined by B.F. Goodrich in 1923, who used it to fasten rubber
galoshes. In 1994 Robert Friedel authored “Zipper: An Exploration in
Novelty.”
(ON, 7/04, p.5)(www.inventors.about.com)
1918 May 20, The 1st electrically
propelled warship (New Mexico).
(MC, 5/20/02)
1918 Nov 7, Goddard demonstrated
tube-launched solid propellant rockets.
(MC, 11/7/01)
1919 May 27, Charles Strite
patented a pop-up toaster. [see May 29)
(MC, 5/27/02)
1919 May 29, Charles Strite
patented a pop-up toaster. [see May 27]
(SC, 5/29/02)
1919 May 29, Charles Strite
patented a pop-up toaster. [see May 27]
(SC, 5/29/02)
1919 The 1st rotary-dial
telephones were installed in Norfolk, Va.
(SFC, 7/23/04, p.C1)
1920 Jan 13, A NY Times editorial
reported that rockets can never fly.
(MC, 1/13/02)
1920 Jul 7, A device known as the
radio compass was used for the first time on a U.S. Navy airplane.
(MC, 7/7/02)
1920s Harvey Fletcher built the
Western electric Model 2A hearing aid at the Research Division of Bell.
(SFC, 7/26/00, p.D3)
1921 The polygraph (lie detector),
used to measure physiologic phenomena, was invented.
(Econ, 7/10/04, p.71)
1922 Feb 15, Marconi began regular
broadcasting transmissions from Essex.
(MC, 2/15/02)
1922 Mar 28, The 1st microfilm
device was introduced.
(MC, 3/28/02)
1922 Aug 2, Alexander Graham Bell,
Scottish-US physicist (telephone), died in Nova Scotia. He and Gardiner
Hubbard, his father-in-law, were the founders of the National
Geographic Society.
(MC, 8/2/02)(ON, 1/03, p.5)
1922 The 1st arc-welded structure
in the US was a 245-step, freestanding, steel staircase into the
Moaning Caverns of Calaveras, Ca.
(SSFC, 12/16/01, p.C5)
1923 Apr 24, Colonel Jacob Schick
patented Schick razors.
(MC, 4/24/02)
1923 Oct 16, John Harwood patented
a self-winding watch in Switzerland.
(MC, 10/16/01)
1923 Nov 6, Col. Jacob Schick
patented the 1st electric shaver.
(MC, 11/6/01)
1923 Nov 20, Garrett Morgan
invented and patented a traffic signal.
(MC, 11/20/01)
1924 Nov 30, 1st photo facsimile
transmitted across Atlantic by radio from London to NYC.
(MC, 11/30/01)
1924 Otis Elevator Co. installed
its first automatic elevator requiring no attendants in a residential
apartment building. Automatic elevators in skyscrapers arrived 30 years
later.
(WSJ, 11/14/06, p.A18)
1926 Mar 7, The first successful
trans-Atlantic radio-telephone conversation took place, between New
York City and London.
(AP, 3/7/98)
1926 Mar 16, The first liquid-fuel
rocket was launched by physicist Robert H. Goddard. It went 184' (56
meters).
(HN, 3/16/98)(MC, 3/16/02)
1926 Apr 3, Robert Goddard
launched his 2nd flight of a liquid-fueled rocket.
(MC, 4/3/02)
1926 Jul 16, National Geographic
took the 1st natural-color undersea photos.
(MC, 7/16/02)
1926 Oct 19, John C. Garand
patented a semi-automatic rifle.
(MC, 10/19/01)
1926 Dec 7, A gas refrigerator was
patented.
(MC, 12/7/01)
1927 Feb 23, President Coolidge
signed the Radio Act, a bill creating the Federal Radio Commission,
forerunner of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Commerce
Secretary Herbert Hoover established the Federal Radio Commission to
prevent interference among radio signals by allocating broadcast
spectrum.
(WSJ, 11/3/97, p.A20)(AP, 2/23/98)(Econ, 8/14/04,
p.61)
1927 Apr 7, Philo Farnsworth
demonstrated a working prototype of a TV. AT&T Bell Labs scientists
invented long-distance TV transmission. An audience in New York saw an
image of Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover in the first successful
long-distance demonstration of television. His first tele-electronic
image was transmitted on a glass slide in his SF lab at 202 Green St.
(SFEC, 8/18/96, BR p.3)(WSJ, 9/22/95, p.A-7)(AP,
4/7/97)(SFEC, 3/8/98, p.W30)
1927 Sep 7, American television
pioneer Philo T. Farnsworth, 21, succeeded in transmitting an image
through purely electronic means by using a device called an image
dissector. When Philo T. Farnsworth was 13, he envisioned a contraption
that would receive an image transmitted from a remote location—the
television. Farnsworth submitted a patent in January 1927, when he was
19, and began building and testing his invention that summer. He used
an "image dissector" (the first television camera tube) to convert the
image into a current, and an "image oscillite" (picture tube) to
receive it. On this day his tests bore fruit. When the simple image of
a straight line was placed between the image dissector and a carbon arc
lamp, it showed up clearly on the receiver in another room. The New
York World’s Fair showcased the television in April 1939, and soon
afterward, the first televisions went on sale to the public.
(AP, 9/7/97)(HNPD, 9/7/98)
1928 Jan 31, Scotch tape was 1st
marketed by 3-M Company.
(MC, 1/31/02)
1928 Feb 8, 1st transatlantic TV
image was received at Hartsdale, NY.
(MC, 2/8/02)
1928 Feb 25, Bell Labs introduced
a new device to end the fluttering of the television image.
(HN, 2/25/98)
1928 Apr 8, The 1st Karastan rug,
a machine-made product woven through the back, came off the loom in
Leaksville, NC.
(SFCM, 10/10/04, p.10)
1928 Apr 24, The fathometer, used
to measure underwater depth, was patented.
(MC, 4/24/02)
1928 May 29, Fritz von Opel
reached 200 kph in an experimental rocket car. [see Sep 30, 1929]
(SC, 5/29/02)
1928 Dec 19, The 1st autogiro
flight was made in the US. It was a predecessor of the helicopter.
(MC, 12/19/01)
1928 Jean-Leon Reutter, a Swiss
engineer, developed the Atmos clock, which was powered by changes in
the atmosphere. LeCoultre & Cie bought the patent in 1935 and began
making the clock a year later. In 1937 the Swiss company became
Jaeger-LeCoultre.
(SFC, 11/19/08, p.G6)
1929 Mar 2, US Congress created
Court of Customs and Patent Appeals.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1929 Jul 3, Dunlop Latex
Development Laboratories made foam rubber.
(MC, 7/3/02)
1929 Sep 30, The 1st manned rocket
plane flight was made by auto maker Fritz von Opel.
(MC, 9/30/01)
1929 Stuart Chase authored “Men
and Machines,” in which he examined how machines were replacing human
workers.
(Econ, 11/13/04, Survey p.14)
1929 William Green developed the
first automatic pilot used on an airliner.
(NPub, 2002,
p.12)(www.spaceday.org/index.php/History-of-Flight-Timeline.html)
1930 Feb 26, Manhattan, NYC,
installed the 1st red and green traffic lights.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1930 Mar 27, 1st US radio
broadcast from a ship at sea.
(MC, 3/27/02)
1930 Apr 10, The first synthetic
rubber was produced.
(HN, 4/10/98)
1930 Apr 29, Telephone connection
England-Australia went into service.
(MC, 4/29/02)
1930 May 27, Richard Drew invented
masking tape.
(MC, 5/27/02)
1930 Jun 24, The 1st radar
detection of planes was made at Anacostia, DC.
(MC, 6/24/02)
1930 Sep 21, Johann Ostermeyer
patented the flashbulb.
(MC, 9/21/01)
1930 Dr. Thomas Midgley, Jr.
(1889-1944), employed by General Motors, discovered
dichlorodifluoromethane, a chlorinated fluorocarbon (CFC), that he
named Freon. It proved ideal as a refrigerant and opened the way for
smaller and less expensive air conditioning units.
(ON, 8/07,
p.12)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley)
1930 The Germany Stihl company,
founded in 1926 by Andreas Stihl, introduced a portable gasoline chain
saw.
(WSJ, 4/3/09, p.C5)
1930-1945 Leo Szilard, scientist on the Manhattan
Project, later published selected recollections and correspondence from
this period in the book: "Leo Szilard: His Version of the Facts."
(SFEM, 7/30/00, p.16)
1931 Nov 1, Dupont introduced
synthetic rubber. [see Nov 3]
(MC, 11/1/01)
1931 Nov 3, The 1st commercially
produced synthetic rubber was manufactured. [see Nov 1]
(MC, 11/3/01)
1931 Nov 20, AT&T began
commercial teletype service.
(MC, 11/20/01)
1931 Dec 8, Coaxial cable was
patented.
(MC, 12/8/01)
1931 Dec 29, The identification of
heavy water was publicly announced by H.C. Urey.
(MC, 12/29/01)
1931 The Bosch Semaphore was
introduced. It was an orange arm that drivers could pop out the window
to signal turns.
(WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)
1931 Ernst Ruska, a student at
Berlin’s Technical Univ., found that a magnetic coil could focus a beam
of electrons in much the same way that a glass lens focuses light. This
later led to his use of a pair of magnetic lenses and a detector to
produce the first electron microscope. Rheinhold Ruedenberg (1883-1961)
patented the principle of electron-microscope imaging for Siemens and
Halske.
(www.msu.edu/~daggy/cop/bkofdead/obits-ru.htm)(www.timelinescience.org/years/1950.htm)
(I&I, Penzias, p.204)
1932 Feb 16, The 1st patent for a
tree was issued to James Markham for a peach tree.
(MC, 2/16/02)
1932 Feb 21, Camera exposure meter
was patented by WN Goodwin.
(MC, 2/21/02)
1932 Aug 14, Philips made its 1
millionth radio.
(MC, 8/14/02)
1932 Nov 22, A pump was patented
that computed quantity and price delivered.
(MC, 11/22/01)
1933 Feb 25, The 1st genuine
aircraft carrier was christened: USS Ranger.
(MC, 2/25/02)
1933 Mar 27, Polythene was
discovered by Reginald Gibson and Eric William Fawcett.
(MC, 3/27/02)
1933 May 15, 1st voice
amplification system was used in US Senate.
(MC, 5/15/02)
1933 The first unmanned aerial
vehicle (UAV) was the radio-controlled “Fairey Queen” biplane. It was
catapulted into the air and survived 2 hours of live fire from a
British warship. In 1934 Britain’s Air Ministry ordered 420 such
aircraft, known as the Queen Bee, which gave rise to the word drone to
describe such aircraft.
(Econ, 12/8/07, TQ p.23)
1934 Mar 20, Test of practical
radar apparatus was made by Rudolf Kuhnold in Germany.
(MC, 3/20/02)
1934 May 23, Wallace Carothers
manufactured the 1st nylon, polymer 66.
(MC, 5/23/02)
1934 The Readphone was produced
for putting literature and music on long-playing disks.
(SFC, 7/26/00, p.D3)
1935 Jan 8, AC Hardy patented the
spectrophotometer.
(MC, 1/8/02)
1935 Feb 2, A lie detector,
invented in 1921, was 1st used in court at Portage, Wisc.
(MC, 2/2/02)(Econ, 7/10/04, p.71)
1935 Feb 26, Radio Detection and
Ranging (RADAR) was 1st demonstrated by Robert Watson-Watt.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1935 Feb 28, Nylon was discovered
by Dr. Wallace H. Carothers.
(MC, 2/28/02)
1935 Mar 28, Goddard used
gyroscopes to control a rocket.
(MC, 3/28/02)
1935 Apr 1, The first radio tube
to be made of metal was announced in Schenectady, NY.
(OTD)
1935 Apr 2, Sir Watson-Watt
patented RADAR.
(MC, 4/2/02)
1936 Jan 2, The 1st electron tube
to enable night vision was described in St Louis, Mo.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1936 Feb 4, 1st radioactive
substance, radium E, was produced synthetically.
(MC, 2/4/02)
1936 Mar 26, A 200" telescope lens
was shipped by the Corning Glass Works from New York to Cal Tech.
(SS, 3/26/02)
1936 May 5, Edward Ravenscroft
patented screw-on bottle cap with a pour lip.
(MC, 5/5/02)
1936 Nov 2, The first
high-definition public television transmissions began from Alexandra
Palace in north London.
(HN, 11/2/98)
1936 Dec 1, Bell Labs tested
coaxial cable for TV use.
(MC, 12/1/01)
1936 Dec 1, EW Brundin & FF
Lyon obtained patents on the soil-less culture of plants.
(MC, 12/1/01)
1936 H.W. Dudley, a scientist for
Bell Labs, invented the "voice coder" or "voder," 1st electronic speech
synthesizer.
(SFC, 7/26/00, p.D3)
1937 Jul 20, Guglielmo Marconi
(b.1874), Italian engineer, inventor of wireless telegraphy, marquis
(radio, Nobel 1909), died in Rome.
(ON, 11/99, p.10)(MC, 7/20/02)
1937 Dr. Gerhard Fisher patented a
metal detector. Alexander Graham Bell had developed a primitive
forerunner in 1881 to try to remove an assassin’s bullet from Pres.
Garfield.
(ON, 5/02, p.9)
1938 Jan 19, GM began mass
production of diesel engines.
(MC, 1/19/02)
1938 Feb 17, The first color
television was demonstrated at the Dominion Theatre in London. [see Dec
20]
(HN, 2/17/01)
1938 Feb 26, The 1st passenger
ship was equipped with radar.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1938 Oct 22, Chester Carlson and
Otto Kornei performed the 1st successful test of their photocopier at
Astoria, Queens, NYC. They used powdered ink and an electrical charge
to create the first photocopy. The reproduced page said: "10-28-38
Astoria." Carlson tried to sell the machine to IBM, RCA, Kodak and
others, but they were not impressed.
(HN, 10/22/00)(ON, 11/04, p.7)
1938 Dec 20, First electronic
television system was patented. [see Feb 17]
(HN, 12/20/98)
1938 Apr 6, Roy Plunkett, a DuPont
researcher in New Jersey, discovered the polymer,
polytetrafluoroethylene, later known as teflon. He patented the
substance in 1941.
(SFEC, 11/7/99, Par p.12)(Sm, 2/06, p.38)
1938 William Hewlett and David
Packard began their Hewlett Packard Co. in a one-car garage at 767
Addison in Palo Alto with $538. As a student at Stanford, Hewlett built
a prototype for an audio oscillator. In 1939 it became their first
product to be sold. Walt Disney used it in making the film "Fantasia."
In 2007 Michael S. Malone authored Bill & Dave.”
(SFC, 1/8/98, p.C3)(SFC, 3/3/99, p.A11)(SFEC,
6/6/99, p.T7)(WSJ, 6/6/07, p.D7)
1939 Jan 22, The uranium atom was
1st split at Columbia University.
(MC, 1/22/02)
1939 Jul 18, Edwin H. Armstrong
(1890-1954), US radio engineer, started the 1st FM (frequency
modulation) radio station in Alpine, NJ.
(SSFC, 10/24/04, Par p.5)
1939 Aug 1, Synthetic vitamin K
was produced for the first time.
(HN, 8/1/00)
1939 Nov 1, The 1st animal, a
rabbit, conceived by artificial insemination was displayed.
(MC, 11/1/01)
1939 Nov 1, 1st jet plane, a
Heinkel He 178, was demonstrated to German Air Ministry.
(MC, 11/1/01)
1939 Nov 4, The 1st air
conditioned automobile, the Packard, was exhibited, Chicago, Ill.
(MC, 11/4/01)
1940 Apr 20, RCA publicly
demonstrated its new and powerful electron microscope in Philadelphia,
Pa.
(AP, 4/20/97)(HN, 4/20/98)(MC, 4/20/02)
1940 May 20, Igor Sikorsky
unveiled his helicopter invention.
(MC, 5/20/02)
1940 Jun 4, A synthetic rubber
tire was unveiled.
(MC, 6/4/02)
1940 Aug 20, Radar was used for
the first time, by the British during the Battle of Britain.
(HN, 8/20/00)
1940 Martin Kamen (d.2002 at 89)
discovered carbon-14. Kamen was fired in 1944 from his position at UC
Berkeley due to suspicions arising from a dinner with 2 officials from
the Russian consulate.
(SFC, 9/14/02, p.A19)
1940 Neptunium was discovered and
named after the planet Neptune.
(NH, 7/02, p.36)
1942 Four engineers at Standard
Oil, including Donald L. Campbell (d.2002 at 98), invented a process
called fluid catalytic cracking, which became essential to increasing
the yield of high-octane gasoline from crude oil.
(SFC, 9/20/02, p.A25)
1943 May 22, The 1st jet fighter
was tested.
(MC, 5/22/02)
1944 Jan 2, The 1st use of
helicopters during warfare was by a British Atlantic patrol.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1944 The "Prospectus on
Nucleonics," also known as the Jeffries Report, from the Chicago
Metallurgical Lab addressed the "dilemma of technological progress in a
static world order" and warned that "technological advances without
moral development are catastrophic."
(SFEM, 7/30/00, p.16)
1945 Feb 11, The 1st gas turbine
propeller-driven airplane was flight tested, at Downey, Ca.
(MC, 2/11/02)
1945 May 25, Arthur C. Clark
proposed relay satellites in geosynchronous orbit.
(SC, 5/25/02)
1945 Jun, James Franck, head of a
group of scientists in the study of the social and political
implications of nuclear weapons, delivered the report to Washington
directed to Sec. of War Henry L. Stimson.
(SFEM, 7/30/00, p.16)
1945 Jul, Vannevar Bush published
his report to Pres. Roosevelt: "Science—The Endless Frontier," a vision
for government-funded science and engineering. His essay in the
Atlantic Monthly described how adding structured code words to
microfilm pages in his imaginary “Memex” information retrieval system
would help researchers.
(WSJ, 10/20/97, p.A20)(Econ, 3/3/07,
p.74)(www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/nsf50/vbush1945.htm)
1945 Dec 7, The microwave oven was
patented. Percy Spencer accidentally discovered that microwaves would
also heat food. Spencer, an eighth-grade dropout and electronic wizard,
worked for the Raytheon Manufacturing Corporation of Massachusetts
developing a radar machine using microwave radiation.
(HN, 9/5/01)(MC, 12/7/01)
1946 Jan 10, US Army established
the 1st radar contact with Moon from Belmar, NJ.
(MC, 1/10/02)
1946 Feb 16, The 1st commercially
designed helicopter was tested at Bridgeport, Ct.
(MC, 2/16/02)
1946 Apr 27, 1st radar
installation aboard a commercial ship was installed.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1946 May 26, A patent was filed in
U.S. for H-bomb.
(HN, 5/26/98)
1946 Jun 17, SW Bell inaugurated
mobile telephone commercial service in St Louis.
(MC, 6/17/02)
1946 Sep 11, The 1st mobile
long-distance car-to-car telephone conversation.
(MC, 9/11/01)
1947 Jan, Chester Carlson, patent
attorney and kitchen inventor, signed a licensing agreement with Haloid
Corp. of Rochester, NY, to develop a copy machine. This marked the
beginning of Xerox’s copy business. 12 years later, the company
launched a practical dry copier. Entrepreneur Joe Wilson propelled
Xerox to success. In 2006 Charles D. Ellis authored Joe Wilson and the
Creation of Xerox.”
(WSJ, 8/17/95, p.C-1)(ON, 11/04, p.8)(Econ,
11/18/06, p.86)
1947 Feb 21, Edwin H. Land
publicly demonstrated his Polaroid Land camera in NYC. It could produce
a black-and-white photograph in 60 seconds. Polaroid Corp. was
co-founded by Land and George W. Wheelwright III (d.2001 at 97).
(AP, 2/21/98)(SFC, 3/3/01, p.A22)(MC, 2/21/02)
1947 Apr 16, A lens that provided
zoom effects was demonstrated in New York City.
(HN, 4/16/98)
1947 May 1, Radar for commercial
and private planes was 1st demonstrated.
(MC, 5/1/02)
1947 May 22, The 1st US ballistic
missile was fired.
(MC, 5/22/02)
1947 Sep 15, The 1st 4 engine, jet
propelled fighter plane was tested at Columbus, Ohio.
(MC, 9/15/01)
1947 Oct 3, The 1st telescope lens
200" (508 cm) in diameter completed.
(MC, 10/3/01)
1947 Dec 23, John Bardeen and
Walter Brattain of AT&T Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey,
unveiled what was soon to be called the transistor, short for the
electrical property known as trans-resistance, which paved the way to a
new era of miniaturized electronics. The device was improved by William
Schockley as a junction transistor. All 3 received a Nobel Prize in
1956. The events are described in the 1997 book by Michael Riordan and
Lillian Hoddeson: "Crystal Fire: The Birth of the Information Age."
(WSJ, 9/22/95, p.A-7)(SFEC, 8/17/97, BR p.4)(AP,
12/23/97)
1947 Bell Labs invented cellular
phone technology.
(WSJ, 8/21/06, p.A2)
1947 Raytheon introduced its 1st
microwave oven, the Radarange.
(AH, 10/01, p.36)
c1947 Lawrence MacKenzie (d.2002),
doctoral candidate at UC Berkeley, was one of 3 men who discovered
astatine, element 85, the 1st element to be synthetically manufactured.
It was formed by bombarding bismuth with alpha particles. He also
helped build the 1st cyclotron.
(SFC, 7/22/02, p.B5)
1948 Jan 27, The 1st tape recorder
sold.
(MC, 1/27/02)
1948 Apr 21, The 1st Polaroid
camera was sold in US.
(MC, 4/21/02)
1948 Jun 30, Bell Labs introduced
the point-contact transistor in the New York Times on p.46 as a
replacement for the vacuum tube. Bell Labs had kept it secret for six
months. John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley
demonstrated their invention, the transistor, for the first time. John
Pierce (d.2002) proposed the name. Transistors, much smaller than
vacuum tubes, allowed the creation of smaller electronic devices and
became a key component of the integrated circuit, which are found in
everything from radios to computers to any of a number of automated
systems. They were awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for the invention
in 1956. William Schockley, co-developer of the transistor, founded
Schockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Palo Alto. Two of his hires,
Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore, later went on to start Intel Corp. Tim
Jackson in 1998 published "Inside Intel." [see Dec 23, 1947]
(SFE, 10/1/95, p.D-5)(SFEC, 8/17/97, BR
p.4)(SFEC,12/14/97, p.A1)(WSJ, 2/13/98, p.A13)(HNQ, 12/23/99)(HN,
6/30/01)(SFC, 4/9/02, p.A18)
1948 Nov 23, Dr. Frank G. Back in
NYC patented a lens to provide zoom effects.
(MC, 11/23/01)
1948 Albert Baez (1912-2007),
Mexican-American physicist, and Paul Kirkpatrick co-invented the X-ray
reflection microscope for the study of living cells.
(SSFC, 3/25/07, p.B3)
1948 Richard Bolt and Leo Beranek,
professors at MIT, established a small acoustics consulting firm and
soon added a former student of Bolt’s, Robert Newman. In 1949 BBN won
its first major consulting contract, designing the acoustics for the UN
General Assembly Hall. In 2008 Leo Beranek authored “Riding the Waves:
A Life in Sound, Science and Industry.”
(www.bbn.com/about/timeline/)(WSJ, 5/22/08, p.A13)
1948 George de Mestral
(1907-1990), a Swiss inventor, began studying the burdock plant because
of the plant’s ability to attach its seed to his clothes and dog’s fur.
His analysis of the hook and loop system of plant led to the
development of velcro, patented in 1955.
(Econ, 6/11/05, TQ
p.18)(http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa091297.htm)
1949 Jan 10, RCA introduced the 45
RPM record.
(MC, 1/10/02)
1949 Feb 1, The 200" (5.08-m) Hale
telescope was 1st used.
(MC, 2/1/02)
1949 Jun 16, A gas turbine,
electric locomotive was demonstrated in Erie, Pa.
(MC, 6/16/02)
1949-1951 The Iowa Army Ammunition Plant in
Middletown under the Atomic Energy Commission was the home of the only
nuclear assembly plant in the US. Worker health was not monitored.
Nuclear operations were moved to Texas in the 1970s.
(SFC, 8/1/00, p.A3)
1950 Sep 11, The 1st typesetting
machine to dispense with metal type was exhibited.
(MC, 9/11/01)
1950 Mar 17, Scientists at the
University of California at Berkeley announced they had created a new
radioactive element, which they named "californium."
(AP, 3/17/97)
1950 Mar 30, Phototransistor
invention was announced in Murray Hill, NJ. It was invented by Dr. John
Northrup Shive of the Bell Telephone Laboratories.
(http://tinyurl.com/ewxqh)
1951 Feb 1, The 1st X-ray moving
picture process demonstrated.
(MC, 2/1/02)
1951 Apr 22, There was a
ticker-tape parade for General MacArthur in NYC.
(MC, 4/22/02)
1951 Jul 5, Dr. William Shockley
invented junction transistor at Murray Hill, NJ.
(MC, 7/5/02)
1951 Aug 18, The 1st
transcontinental wireless phone call was made from SF to NYC by Mark
Sullivan, president of PT&T, and H.T. Killingworth of AT&T.
(SFC, 8/17/01, p.WB6)
1951 Dec 31, The 1st battery to
convert radioactive energy to electrical was announced.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1951 Dr. Charles Townes, head of
Columbia Univ. Radiation laboratory, came up with a process for
focusing packets of light energy, an idea 1st postulated by Einstein in
1917. This led to the 1953 development of the maser, microwave
amplification by stimulated emission of radiation, a forerunner to the
laser. 2 Soviet scientists managed a maser with continuous output.
(Econ, 6/11/05, TQ p.25)
1952 Oct 3, The 1st video
recording on magnetic tape was made in LA, Ca.
(MC, 10/3/01)
1952 Oct 31, The United States
exploded the first hydrogen bomb at Eniwetok Atoll in the Pacific. [see
Nov 1]
(TMC, 1994, p.1952)(HN, 10/31/98)
1952 Nov 1, The United
States exploded the first hydrogen bomb, in a test at Eniwetok in the
Marshall Islands. The element einsteinium was discovered in the debris
of the 1st hydrogen bomb test. [see Oct 31]
(AP, 11/1/97)(NH, 7/02, p.35)
1952 Dec 11, Stanford scientist
demonstrated the new $1,750,000 linear electron accelerator. Its
200-foot barrel fired electrons at 99.99% the speed of light.
(SFC, 12/6/02, p.E16)
1952 Researchers at Bell labs
developed the 1st system to recognize numbers spoken over a telephone.
(SFC, 7/26/00, p.D3)(Econ, 6/9/07, TQ p.30)
1953 Oct 13, A burglar alarm using
ultrasonic or radio waves was patented by Samuel Bagno.
(MC, 10/13/01)
1953 An aerospace chemist invented
WD-40. Rocket Chemical Company sold the product to coat missiles and
prevent rust. Consumers later discovered its use as a lubricant. In
1969 John Barry (1925-2000) became head of the company and soon renamed
the firm after the product.
(SFC, 7/14/99, p.8)(SFC, 7/22/09, p.D5)
1953 Dr. Daniel Fox, a chemist at
GE, invented Lexan polycarbonate resin, a hard plastic.
(WSJ, 1/10/07, p.B2)
1954 Jan 31, Edwin H. Armstrong
(b.1890), US radio inventor of frequency modulation (1933), committed
suicide.
(www.britannica.com)(SSFC, 10/24/04, Par p.5)
1954 Feb 26, 1st typesetting
machine (photo engraving) used at Quincy, MA.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1954 Apr 18, The US held a
nationwide test of its disaster radio system known as Conelrad. In SF a
simulated 10-megaton bomb, exploding over Hunters Point, was estimated
to kill 500,000 Bay Area citizens.
(SSFC, 4/12/09, DB p.43)
1954 Apr 25, Bell Labs in NYC
announced the 1st solar battery.
(SFC, 2/16/04, p.E1)
1954 Aug 3, The 1st VTOL (Vertical
Take-off & Land) aircraft was flown.
(SC, 8/3/02)
1954 Marc Gregoire, a French
engineer, bonded aluminum with polytetrafluorethylene (PTFE) and
created the 1st nonstick pan.
(AARP, 5-6/04)
1955 Jan 31, RCA demonstrated the
1st music synthesizer.
(MC, 1/31/02)
1955 Mar 24, The 1st seagoing oil
drill rig was placed in service.
(MC, 3/24/02)
1955 Jul 18, 1st electric power
generated from atomic energy was sold commercially.
(MC, 7/18/02)
1955 Dec 12, 1st prototype of
hovercraft patented by British engineer Christopher Cockerell.
(MC, 12/12/01)
1955 Frederick Sanger sequenced
the 1st protein, human insulin. He later developed methods for
sequencing DNA.
(WSJ, 4/5/01, p.B1)
1956 Apr 14, Ampex Corporation
demonstrated its first commercial videotape recorder.
(AP, 4/14/00)
1957 Jan 3, The Hamilton
Watch Company was the first to introduce an electric watch in
Lancaster, Pa.
(440 Int'l. 1/3/99)(MC, 1/3/02)
1957 Feb 12, Researchers announced
the development of Borazan, a substance harder than diamonds.
(MC, 2/12/02)
1957 Apr 25, The 1st experimental
sodium nuclear reactor operated.
(SS, 4/25/02)
1957 Apr 29, The 1st military
nuclear power plant was dedicated at Fort Belvoir, Va.
(MC, 4/29/02)
1957 Nov, Gordon Gould (d.2005), a
Columbia Univ. doctoral student under Dr. Townes, came up with a
process for concentrating visible light as opposed to microwaves of a
maser. He was the 1st to use the term laser.
(Econ, 6/11/05, TQ p.28)
1957 Hoover produced its best
selling model, the Convertible (Model 65), an upright vacuum cleaner
that could be converted with a hose for above the floor cleaning.
(SFC, 7/19/08, p.F2)
1957 PG&E teamed with General
Electric to establish the Vallecitos atomic energy plant, the world’s
1st privately owned and operated nuclear facility.
(SFC, 4/7/01, p.A5)
1958 Jan 24, After warming to
100,000,000 degrees, 2 light atoms were bashed together to create a
heavier atom, resulting in 1st man-made nuclear fusion.
(MC, 1/24/02)
1958 Mar 27, CBS Labs announced
new stereophonic records.
(MC, 3/27/02)
1958 Jul 24, Jack Kilby
(1923-2005) of Texas Instruments came up with the idea for creating the
1st integrated circuit on a piece of silicon. By September 12 he made a
working prototype.
(SFC, 10/11/00, p.A6)(SFC, 6/22/05, p.A5)(Econ,
7/25/05, p.75)
1958 The US Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency (DARPA) was formed in response to the Soviet
launch of Sputnik.
(SFC, 5/26/03, p.B1)
1958 An anti-trust court case
forced AT&T to license its non-telephone related technology to
anyone who asked.
(Econ, 6/12/04, p.38)
1958 Haloid Corp. changed its name
to Haloid-Xerox and produced a prototype of the 914 copy machine.
(ON, 11/04, p.8)
1958 Arnold Neustadter began
marketing Rolodex, a rotary card filing system, invented by his
employee Hildaur L. Neilsen. Neustadter had patented the system in 1956.
(WSJ, 11/24/07, p.W7)
1958 Arthur Schawlow and Charles
Townes developed their laser, light amplification by stimulated
emission of radiation, while working at Bell labs. They received a
patent in 1960.
(www1.bell-labs.com/history/laser/)(www.ipmall.info/about/user11.asp)
1958 The Goldstar electronics firm
was founded in South Korea. It later became known as LG Electronics.
(Econ, 1/24/09, p.70)
1959 Feb 1, Texas Instruments
requested a patent for the IC (Integrated Circuit).
(MC, 2/1/02)
1959 Robert Noyce (1927-1990) of
Fairchild Semiconductor constructed an integrated circuit. Both Texas
Instruments and Fairchild claimed independent discovery of the IC.
Noyce went on to found Intel Corp. Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments had
made a working prototype in 1958.
(WSJ, 9/22/98, p.B3)(SFC, 10/11/00, p.A6)
1959 Pres. Eisenhower demonstrated
the invention by Jerome Morse (d.2001 at 80) of the 1st miniaturized,
portable nuclear power generator, used for space vehicles.
(SFC, 12/15/01, p.A25)
1959 Edward G. Zubler (d.2004), GE
research chemist, developed the halogen lamp.
(SFC, 3/24/04, p.B7)
1960 Jan 23, The Bathyscaphe
"Trieste" reached bottom of Pacific at 10,900 m. Jacques Piccard
(1922-2008) and US Navy Lt. Don Walsh descended for 20 minutes in
the Trieste into the Mariana Trench, a 1,500 mile gash in the Earth’s
crust east of the Philippines with a depth of 37,000 feet below sea
level, nearly 7 miles.
(SFC, 10/29/96, p.A11)(SFEC, 11/17/96, BR p.4)(AP,
11/1/08)
1960 Mar 22, The 1st patent for
lasers was granted to Arthur Schawlow and Charles Townes. Schawlow and
Townes developed their laser, light amplification by stimulated
emission of radiation, while working at Bell labs in 1958.
(www1.bell-labs.com/history/laser/)(www.ipmall.info/about/user11.asp)
1960 Mar, The Xerox model 914
plain-paper copier made its debut. It was invented by Chester Carlson
and had been nursed along by Batelle research institute of Ohio and
Haloid, a NY manufacturer of photographic paper. In 1961 Haloid became
Xerox.
(WSJ, 8/6/04, p.W8)(ON, 11/04, p.8)
1960 Apr 14, The 1st underwater
launching of Polaris missile.
(MC, 4/14/02)
1960 Apr 27, The 1st atomic
powered electric-drive submarine was launched at Tullibee.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1960 Jun 27, Chlorophyll "A" was
synthesized at Cambridge, Mass.
(SC, 6/27/02)
1960 Jul 20, The submarine George
Washington became the 1st submerged sub to fire a Polaris missile.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1960 Aug 13, The first two-way
telephone conversation by satellite took place with the help of Echo 1,
a balloon satellite.
(HN 8/13/97)
1960 Sep 27, Europe's 1st "moving
pavement," (travelator), opened at Bank station.
(MC, 9/27/01)
1960 George Kozmetsky (d.2003 at
85) and Henry Singleton of Litton Industries formed Teledyne Corp.
Kozmetsky and his wife Ronya formed the RGK Foundation in 1966.
(SFC, 5/7/03, p.A1)
1960 Theodore Maiman, a physicist
at the Hughes Research Labs in California, produced the 1st working
laser.
(Econ, 6/11/05, TQ p.28)
1960 Stanford R. Ovshinsky and his
wife Iris founded Energy Conversion Devices (ECD) in Rochester Hills,
Michigan. In the 1980s the company introduced a nickel-metal hydride
battery (NiMH) for consumer use and made it available for automobiles
in the early 1990s. The technology made hybrid vehicles possible. By
2006 sales for the solar division, United Solar Ovonic, reached $90
Million.
(WSJ, 10/13/04, p.C1)(WSJ, 11/27/06, p.A1)(Econ,
12/2/06, TQ p.33)
1960-1970 Genrich S. Altshuller (b.1926), Soviet
engineer, developed his Theory of Inventive Problem Solving, or TRIZ.
(www.mazur.net/triz/)
1961 Apr 25, Robert Noyce patented
the integrated circuit.
(SS, 4/25/02)
1961 Jun 1, FM multiplex stereo
broadcasting was 1st heard. (MC, 6/1/02)
1961 Robert Rempel (1925-2005)
co-founded Spectra-Physics, which became the 1st company to make lasers.
(SFC, 6/6/05, p.B3)
1962 Mar 28, The U.S. Air Force
announced research into the use of lasers to intercept missiles and
satellites.
(HN, 3/28/98)
1962 Jun 22, The Hovercraft was
1st tested.
(MC, 6/22/02)
1962 Jul 10, The communications
satellite Telstar, developed by Bell Labs, was launched from Cape
Canaveral, Florida, beaming live television from Europe to the United
States.
(AP, 7/10/97)(HN, 7/10/98)(WSJ, 8/21/06, p.A2)
1962 Ground was broken for the new
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center at Stanford Univ., Ca. Atom smashing
began in 1966. [see Dec 11, 1952]
(SFC, 9/30/02, p.A5)
1962 Nick Holonyak Jr., an
engineer for General Electric, built the first light-emitting diode
(LED). GE patented the discovery.
(WSJ, 6/8/06, p.B6)(Econ, 9/23/06, TQ p.26)
1963 Feb 9, 1st flight of Boeing
727 jet.
(MC, 2/9/02)
1963 Jun 24, 1st demonstration of
home video recorder was at the BBC Studios in London.
(MC, 6/24/02)
1963 Nov 16, Touch-tone telephone
was introduced.
(MC, 11/16/01)
1963 Profs. Emmett Leith and Juris
Upatnieks, engineers at the Univ. of Michigan, created the 1st working
hologram. Pieter van Heerden of Polaroid Research Labs pioneered the
holographic principle.
(MT, Summer/04, p.8)(Econ, 6/9/07, TQ p.28)
1963 Ray Dolby, while working in
India, conceived of separating recorded sound into 2 channels as a
means to strip away unwanted tape recording noise. His 1st prototype
was completed in London in 1966.
(SFC, 3/29/04, p.D1)
1964 May 21, The 1st
nuclear-powered lighthouse began operations in the Chesapeake Bay.
(MC, 5/21/02)
1964 Jul 31, The American space
probe Ranger 7 transmitted pictures of the moon's surface.
(AP, 7/31/97)
1964 Oct 14, Philips began
experimenting with color TV.
(MC, 10/14/01)
1964 The US navy began its SeaLab
experiments. SeaLab I was lowered off the coast of Bermuda to see if
divers could be sustained on a helium-oxygen mix. The trial ended after
11 days. [see 1965, 1969]
(SFC, 3/29/02, p.A2)
1964 Robert Weitbrecht, a deaf
person, invented the teletypewriter (TTY). It enabled deaf people to
call each other and type conversations.
(SSFC, 5/13/01, Par p.4)
1964 General Electric began
marketing a new hard plastic called Noryl.
(WSJ, 1/10/07, p.B2)
1964-1968 In India’s "green revolution" the wheat
crop increased from 10 million to 17 million tons following the use of
dwarfing genes and fertilizer to increase the grains on each
stalk. Chidambaram Subramaniam, minister of agriculture,
convinced Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri to use new seeds,
developed by Norman Borlaug in Mexico, for wheat production.
(SFC, 11/11/00, p.A26)
1965 Apr 27, RC Duncan patented
"Pampers," a disposable diaper.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1965 C.P. Snow authored "The Two
Cultures," on the chasm between the arts and sciences.
(SFEM, 7/30/00, p.9)
1965 The US navy lowered SeaLab II
was lowered off the coast of San Diego to see if divers could be
sustained on a helium-oxygen mix. [see 1965, 1969]
(SFC, 3/29/02, p.A2)
1965 Kevlar was invented by
Stephanie Kwolek, a chemist for DuPont, while experimenting with
polymers for new ways to reinforce car tires. In 1970 Herbert Blades of
DuPont developed a process for mass production. Marketing began in 1971.
(SFC, 4/7/03, p.E2)
1966 Hewlett-Packard introduced
its first computer, the HP 2116A. The 9,000 person company had sales of
around $200 million.
(SFC, 3/3/99, p.A11)
1966 Hewlett-Packard developed the
first commercially available light-emitting diode (LED).
(SFC, 8/31/09, p.D1)
1966 Texas Instruments introduced
its 1st hand-held calculator based on the integrated circuit developed
by Jack Kilby in 1958.
(Econ, 7/25/05, p.75)
1966 The new $114 million Stanford
Linear Accelerator Center at Stanford Univ., Ca., began smashing atoms.
(SFC, 9/30/02, p.A5)
1967 Jul 19, The 1st air
conditioned NYC subway car was R-38 on the F line.
(MC, 7/19/02)
1968 Feb 16, America’s first 911
emergency telephone system was inaugurated in Haleyville, Ala.
(AP, 2/16/98)
1968 Dec 9, Doug Engelbart and
researchers at Stanford Research Institute first demonstrated in SF the
computer mouse along with a graphical user interface (gui), display
editing, integrated text and graphics, hyper documents and 2-way
video-conferencing with shared work spaces. In 2001 Thierry Bardini
authored "Bootstrapping: Douglas Engelbart, Coevolution, and the
Origins of Personal Computing."
(SFC, 12/4/98, p.B2)(SSFC, 1/21/01, BR p.6)(SFC,
12/8/08, p.A1)
1968 James Watson, Nobel Prize
winner, published "The Double Helix."
(SFC, 3/19/98, p.C4)(SFEM, 7/30/00, p.9)
1968 Hewlett-Packard introduced
the world’s 1st programmable scientific desktop calculator.
(SFC, 1/13/01, p.A15)
1968 Hewlett-Packard introduced
the 1st commercially available light-emitting diode (LED) used for
displays and traffic lights.
(SFC, 2/22/06, p.C1)
1968 Chester Carlson (62),
inventor of the photocopy machine (1960), died. In 2004 David Owen
authored “Copies In seconds.”
(WSJ, 8/6/04, p.A8)
1969 Feb 9, World's largest
airplane, Boeing 747, made its 1st commercial flight.
(MC, 2/9/02)
1969 Sep 2, The first Internet
message was a packet switch delivered to UCLA from BBN Corp. (Bolt
Beranek and Newman). The 1st 2 machines of ARPANET were connected at
Prof. Len Kleinrock's lab at UCLA. The US Dept. of Defense’s Advanced
Research and Projects Agency (ARPANET) launched a self-healing computer
network with TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol / Internet
Protocol). By the early 1980’s the military component became a separate
network and the true birth of today’s Internet is marked. By 2007 some
university researchers with the federal government's blessing want to
scrap the Internet and start over.
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070414/ap_on_hi_te/rebuilding_the_internet_8)(SFEC,
3/16/97, z1 p.3)(CompuServe Mag., 6/95, p.18)(SFC, 8/30/99, p.C10)(SFC,
9/3/99, p.C1)
1969 Oct 29, Researchers at
Stanford sent the first e-mail message across the Arpanet. The US Dept.
of Defense’s Advanced Research and Projects Agency (ARPANET) launched a
self-healing computer network with TCP/IP (Transmission Control
Protocol / Internet Protocol). By the early 1980’s the military
component became a separate network and the true birth of today’s
Internet was marked [see Sep 2].
(CS Mag., 6/95, p.18)(WSJ, 1/14/99,
p.A1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPANET)
1969 The US navy lowered SeaLab
III was lowered off San Clemente Island to see if divers could exit a
submarine and walk on the sea floor. [see 1965, 1969]
(SFC, 3/29/02, p.A2)
1970 Jan 12, The Boeing 747 made
its maiden voyage.
(MC, 1/12/02)
1970 Jan 21, The Boeing 747-100
made its 1st commercial transatlantic flight from NY to London. The
plane was 231 feet long with a wing span of 195 feet. It could seat 400
people in a cabin 182 feet long.
(WSJ, 7/19/96, p.B5)(MC, 1/21/02)
1970 The Palo Alto Research Center
(PARC) of Xerox opened on the outskirts of Palo Alto. George Pake
(1924-2004) ran the center until 1978. It was founded by Dr. Jacob
Goldman.
(www.mit-forum.org.il/2000events/tenyears_eng.htm)(SFC, 10/25/00,
p.D1)(SFC, 3/11/04, p.C5)
1970-1979 CAT Scan (Computer Assisted Tomography)
technology was developed.
(MT, 10/94, p.9)
1971 Jan, Intel Corp. created the
first microprocessor. The 4004, the world's first microprocessor, is
signed with the initials F.F., for Federico Faggin, its designer. The
4004 was released in 16-pin CERDIP packaging on November 15, 1971.
(www.intel4004.com/)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_4004)
1971 Jul 31, Apollo 15 astronauts
took a drive on the moon in their land rover.
(HN, 7/31/98)
1971 The 1st laser printer was
made at Xerox PARC in Palo Alto, Ca.
(SFC, 7/26/04, p.F4)
1971 AT&T Bell Labs conducted
its first cellular phone test in Chicago.
(WSJ, 12/6/99, p.A3)
1972 Feb 1, Hewlett-Packard
introduced the 1st scientific hand-held calculator, the HP-35, for $395.
(www.hp-collection.org/calculators/35a.html)(SFC,
8/31/09, p.D1)
1972 Apr 4, The 1st electric power
plant fueled by garbage began operating.
(MC, 4/4/02)
1972 Hewlett-Packard introduced
the first scientific handheld calculator, the HP-35, which made the
slide-rule obsolete.
(SFC, 3/3/99,
p.A11)(www.hp.com/hpinfo/abouthp/histnfacts/timeline/index.html)
1972 The compact disc (CD) was
introduced.
(NW, 9/16/02, p.34D)
1973 Apr 3, In NYC Martin Cooper,
a general manager for Motorola, called rival AT&T making the first
cell phone call using a cell phone the size of a brick.
(SFC, 4/4/08, p.C1)
1973 Aug 23, The Intelsat
communications satellite was launched.
(MC, 8/23/02)
1974 Jun 26, At the Marsh
Supermarket in Troy, Ohio, Sharon Buchanon became the 1st cashier to
scan a Universal Product Code (UPC) code. The 59 black and white bar
code was used on a 67 cent 10-pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit chewing
gum. The scanner was a Spectra-Physics Model A. Norman Joseph Woodland
and Bernard Silver (d.1962) had patented the 1st bar code scanner in
1952. In 1977 an int’l. version was created.
(SFC, 7/5/04, p.E3)(SSFC, 11/6/05, p.B5)(SFC,
6/26/09, p.C3)
1974 Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf
published a paper that outlined the protocols of the Internet. Their
Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) was updated in
1978. In 2004 they received the A.M. Turing Award for their work.
(SFC, 6/11/05, p.C1)
1975 By the end of the
Vietnam war, Vietnamese SA-2 missile effectiveness had been reduced to
a kill-ratio of less than 2 percent. Elint: Electronic Intelligence
collected information on and analyzed the strengths and weaknesses of
all forms of hostile electronic transmissions. Focusing on the "Fan
Song" radar system that acquired targets for and then guided the
dreaded SA-2 SAM, Elint was able to identify four key weakness that
pilots could use to defeat the missile.
(HNQ, 11/23/01)
1976 Jan, In SF Robert Swanson
(28), a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, first met with Herb Boyer, a
molecular biologist and co-discoverer of recombinant DNA. The 10 minute
appointment extended to a few hours and the 2 men proceeded to found
Genentech.
(SFC, 5/28/96, p.B1)(SFC, 1/19/98, p.A10)(WSJ,
12/14/99, p.A22)
1976 Apr 7, Robert A. Swanson
(d.1999 at 52), a venture capitalist, and Herb Boyer, a UCSF molecular
biologist and co-discoverer of gene-splicing in 1973, incorporated
Genentech Inc. They planned to use gene splicing to create a genre of
medicines.
(SFC, 5/28/96, p.B1)(SFC, 1/19/98, p.A10)(SSFC,
4/1/01, p.B1)
1976 The U. S. Copyright Act of
1976 declared unpublished materials to be in the public domain when the
records are 100 years old or when the creator of the records has been
dead for fifty years, whichever date comes first. The act also declared
that records created before January 1, 1978 enter the public domain in
2002, provided that they are over 100 years old or the creator of the
records has been dead 50 years.
(SAA, 4/19/99)
1976 H. Taylor Howard (d.2002 at
70) built a homemade satellite dish to capture TV signals. HBO refused
to accept payment for his interceptions. He went on to found Chaparral
Communications Inc. in San Jose.
(SFC, 11/19/02, p.A23)
1976 Positron Emission Tomography
(PET), a body scanning technology, first came on the market. Dr. Michel
Ter-Pogossian of St. Louis led a group that built the first successful
prototypes between 1972-1974. In 1998 PET technology was combined with
computed tomography (CT scans). PET/CT scanners hit the market in 2001.
(Econ, 6/10/06, Survey p.23)
1977 Feb 26, The 1st flight of
Space Shuttle atop a Boeing 747 took place.
(SC, 2/26/02)
1977 AT&T installed the 1st
fiber optic cable.
(WSJ, 10/26/00, p.A12)
1978 Feb 14, G. W. Boone and M.J.
Cochran of Texas Instruments received a patent for their Variable
Function Programmed Calculator.
(www.patents4technologies.com/Historical.htm)
1978 Feb 16, The 1st Computer
Bulletin Board System was Ward & Randy's CBBS in Chicago.
(MC, 2/16/02)
1978 May, The Bahrain Telephone
Company began operating a commercial cellular telephone system. It
probably marks the first time in the world that individuals started
using what we think of as traditional, mobile cellular radio.
(http://tinyurl.com/36e848)
1978 Jun 11, Texas Instruments
announced the first single-chip speech synthesizer.
(www.datamath.org/Speech_IC.htm)
1978 Jul, Advanced Mobile Phone
Service started operating in North America. AMPS was operational in the
Chicago, Illinois, area.
(http://tinyurl.com/36e848)
1978 A paper by Leonard Adleman,
Ron Rivest, and Adi Shamir was published titled A Method for Obtaining
Digital Signatures and Public-Key Cryptosystems. It is widely known
today by the group's initials RSA.
(Wired, 8/95, p.117)
1978 AT&T scientists conducted
FCC-authorized cell-phone field trials in Chicago and Newark, NJ.
(WSJ, 9/22/95,
p.A-7)(www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/mobilephone.htm)
1978 Hewlett-Packard began
development of the inkjet printer, which eventually became a
commercials success.
(SFC, 7/26/04, p.F4)
1978 Intel Corp. introduced the
8086 microprocessor. It was a 16-bit microprocessor with 29,000
transistors.
(TAR, 1996, p.22)
1979 Robert Metcalf of Xerox Corp.
started 3Com Corp. The company specialized in connecting computers
using the Ethernet system, which he helped develop. The early Ethernet
adapters sold for $5000. In 1994 they sold for $100.
(WSJ,11/14/94, p.R26)
1980 Apr 6, Post-It Notes were
introduced.
(MC, 4/6/02)
1980 Luz International was founded
in Israel. It became the first company to implement solar thermal
technology on a commercial scale. Luz began building solar-thermal
power stations in California’s Mojave desert in the mid 1980s.
(Econ, 6/6/09, p.23)
1981 Jul 7, The 1st solar-powered
aircraft, Solar Challenger, crossed the English Channel flying 163
miles from Paris to Canterbury. It was created by Dupont and Paul
MacCready.
(www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/news/FactSheets/FS-054-DFRC.html)(Econ,
9/8/07, p.88)
1981 Bill Rutter founded Chiron
Corp., a biotech operation in Emeryville, Ca.
(SSFC, 4/1/01, p.B1)
1981 Gerd Binnig, Heinrich Rohrer
and Christoph Gerber of IBM developed the scanning-tunneling
microscope. It laid the groundwork for nanotechnology.
(Econ, 9/18/04, TQ p.17)
1983 Mar, Compact Disc recordings,
introduced by Phillips and Sony in Europe in 1982, were introduced to
the US.
(www.iconnect.net/home/bsnpubs/cdhist.html)
1983 Apr 22, Walter Slezak (80),
actor (Bedtime For Bonzo), committed suicide in NY.
(MC, 4/22/02)
1983 Apr 3, Martin Cooper,
Motorola project manager, demonstrated the 1st mobile phone, the
DynaTAC 8000x. It was designed by Rudy Krolopp.
(SFC, 4/12/00, p.D3)(SFC, 4/3/03, p.B1)(NW, 3/17/03,
p.14)
1984 Jan 17, The U.S. Supreme
Court sided with Sony and ruled, 5 to 4, that the private use of home
video cassette recorders to tape television programs did not violate
federal copyright laws.
(AP, 1/17/02)(SFC, 4/8/02, p.E1)
1984 Jan 24, Apple Computer Inc
unveiled its Macintosh personal computer. It included sound-sampling
technology that could play recorded sounds.
(WSJ,11/14/94, p.R26)(WSJ, 3/4/97, p.B1)(MC, 1/24/02)
1984 Jul 21, In Jackson, Michigan,
a male die-cast operator (34) was pinned by a hydraulic Unimate robot.
He died after 5 days. This was the 1st documented case of a robot
killing a human in US.
(www.cdc.gov/niosh/FACE/In-house/full8420.html)
1984 The TED conference was
founded. TED sprung from an observation by Richard Saul Wurman of a
powerful convergence between technology, entertainment and design. The
Sapling Foundation (b.1996) bought the conference in 2001.
(SSFC, 2/07/04, p.E5)
1984 Mike Lazaridis, while a
student at the Univ. of Waterloo in Ontario, co-founded Research In
Motion (RIM) with Douglas Fregin. In 1997 Lazaridis came up with the
idea for a small thumb-using keyboard and RIM went on to produce the
hand-held Blackberry e-mail device.
(Econ, 3/19/05, p.68)(Econ, 9/23/06, TQ p.36)
1984 Hewlett-Packard introduced a
printer using its ground-breaking thermal inkjet printing technology.
(SFC, 2/22/06, p.C1)
1984 Motorola introduced a
brick-sized cell phone for $4,000. [see Apr 3, 1983]
(WSJ, 10/30/03, p.A1)
1985 Mar 23, Joshua Silver, Oxford
physicist, began contemplating the development of self adjusting
eyeglasses. By 2009 some 30,000 of Silver's specs had been distributed
to the poor in 15 countries; his eventual target is 100 million pairs.
(SSFC, 1/11/09, p.A6)(http://tinyurl.com/96buv9)
1985 Michael S. Malone authored
“The Big Score: The Billion-Dollar Story of Silicon Valley.” The PBS
documentary “Silicon Valley Boomtown” was based his book.
(http://malone-grove.com/html/malone.htm)
1985 The FCC decided to open
several bands of wireless spectrum for communications use without a
government license. Bands at 900MHz, 2.4GHz and 5.8GHz were made
available.
(Econ, 6/12/04, Tech p.26)
1986 South Carolina-based 3D
Systems introduced the first commercially available 3-D printer,
pioneering the development of stereolithography.
(Econ, 9/5/09, TQ p.28)
1986 Honda began a robot program
at a fundamental research center outside Tokyo.
(WSJ, 9/4/01, p.A1)
1987 May 30, North American
Philips Company unveiled compact disc video.
(MC, 5/30/02)
1987 GSM, a 2nd generation
wireless technology, was mandated as a Europe-wide standard.
(Econ, 5/28/05, p.66)
1988 Jan 23, Experimental airplane
Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan & Jeana Yeager, completed the 1st
nonstop, round-the-world flight without refueling.
(MC, 1/23/02)
1988 Apr 12, The U.S. Patent and
Trademark Office issued a patent to Harvard University for a
genetically engineered mouse, the first time a patent was granted for
an animal life form.
(AP, 5/9/98)
1988 Dean Kamen, inventor, bought
North Dumpling Island, 3 acres off the Connecticut coast. His
inventions included the 1st portable insulin pump.
(SSFC, 4/8/01, p.B3)(http://tinyurl.com/2pntdd)
1989 Mar 23, Stanley Pons and
Martin Fleischmann, Univ. of Utah scientists, claimed they had produced
atomic fusion at room temperature.
(SS, 3/23/02)(WSJ, 9/5/03, p.B1)
1989 Dean Kamen, inventor, started
a robotics competition for high-schoolers, for Inspiration and
Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST).
(NW, 4/24/03, p.44)
1989 The nickel-metal-hydride
battery appeared on the market.
(Econ, 3/8/08, TQ p.23)
1989 In Israel Dov Moran founded
M-Systems, the original maker of USB flash drives (1999). He sold the
business to SanDisk in 2006 for $1.6 billion.
(www.twst.com/notes/articles/lzt068.html)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-Systems)
1990 The Human Genome Project
began and planned to sequence all human DNA by 2005. The database did
not just store sequences, but linked them with citations to enable new
discoveries. James Watson served as its 1st head. His opposition to
gene patents helped force him from the position in 1992.
(Wired, 8/96, p.198)(SFEM, 7/30/00, p.10)
1991 Nov 6, Keck II became the
biggest telescope in use at Mauna Kea, Hawaii.
(MC, 11/6/01)
1991 Cisco Systems, a network
equipment company, sold for as low as $.06 per share. In 2001 a history
of Cisco Systems, "Cisco Unauthorized: Inside the High Stakes Race to
own the Future" by Jeffrey S. Young, was published.
(WSJ, 3/7/00, p.A20)
1991 Sony introduced the first
commercial lithium-ion batteries. They had a capacity to overheat. In
2004 the US banned them as cargo on passenger planes. In 2006 Dell and
Apple initiated recalls for laptop computers with recently
manufactured, problematic lithium-ion batteries.
(Econ, 8/19/06, p.52)(Econ, 3/8/08, TQ p.23)
1991 Carbon nanotubules, formed
from hexagonal arrays of carbon atoms, were first discovered by Sumio
Iijima of NEC Fundamental Research Labs in Tsukuba, Japan. In 2001 IBM
scientists assembled transistors using carbon nanotubules.
(SFC, 4/27/01, p.B1,4)
1992 Jul 31, The space shuttle
Atlantis blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on a problem-plagued
scientific mission.
(AP, 7/31/97)
1992 The Audio Home Recording Act
restricted the use of digital-recording tools and required makers of
blank tapes an other copying devices to contribute to a royalty pool
for musicians.
(SFC, 4/8/02, p.E1)
1993 Mar 22, Intel introduced its
Pentium processor (80586): 64 bits-60 MHz-100+ MIPS.
(www.intel.com/pressroom/kits/quickreffam.htm#pentium)
1993 In Japan Shuji Nakamura, an
employee of Nichia Corp., invented the blue light-emitting diode (LED).
In 2001 Nakamura sued Nichia in a patent dispute that later settled for
$7 million.
(Econ, 2/7/04, p.60)(Econ, 9/23/06, TQ p.27)
1995 The US Predator surveillance
drone was 1st used over Bosnia. In 2001 it was equipped with the
hell-fire missile and used over Afghanistan. This unmanned aerial
vehicle (UAV) flew as slowly as a Cessna.
(SFC, 11/23/01, p.A12)(Econ, 12/8/07, TQ p.22)
1995 The US military Global
Positioning System (GPS) became fully operational with 27 orbiting
satellites and dual civilian use. It was conceived in the 1960s.
(WSJ, 3/24/03, p.B1)
1995 Marvell Techonolgy Group was
founded In Santa Clara, Ca., by Weili Dai and brother Sehat and Pantas
Sutardja, Indonesian-Chinese immigrants who had studied together at UC
Berkeley. In 2009 the Sutardja Dai Hall, a 7-story science building,
opened in their honor.
(SFC, 2/28/09, p.B3)
1996 Mar 1, New toll-free 888 area
code was introduced.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1996 Mar 1, Plans were approved
allowing traffic cameras at High Harrington and Shap, England.
(SC, 3/1/02)
1996 Aug 8, Frank A. Whittle (89),
inventor of the Jet engine, died.
(MC, 8/8/02)
1997 Nov 20, It was reported that
Lucent Tech.’s Bell Labs has developed a new tiny transistor that is 5
times faster and 1/4th the size of commercially available transistors.
(WSJ, 11/20/97, p.B4)
1997 Dec 11, From Austria
scientists reported in Nature that they had demonstrated a form of
tele-transportation. They teleported the physical condition of a photon
using a phenomenon called entanglement.
(SFC,12/11/97, p.A4)
1997 Gary Hudson (47) bet
everything he had on the Roton rocket, a reusable rocket tipped with
rotor blades and some 100 fuel nozzles. It cost over $60 million and
never reached over a mile in test flights. In 2002 Elizabeth Weil
authored "They All Laughed at Christopher Columbus: An Incurable
Dreamer Builds the First Civilian Spaceship."
(SSFC, 12/1/02, p.M3)
1997 The first (digital video
disk) DVD players came on the market.
(Econ, 6/11/05, TQ p.28)
1997 Philippe Kahn, founder of
Borland Software (1983), pioneered the camera phone when he connected
his digital camera to a cell phone.
(SFC, 5/21/07, p.C2)
1999 Mar 22, The Volantor, a
flying car, was described. It was designed by Paul Moller of Davis,
Ca., and estimated to have range of 900 miles.
(SFC, 3/22/99, p.A15)
1999 Apr, Personal Video Recorders
(PVR) were introduced at a broadcaster’s convention in Las Vegas. and
allowed users to skip through commercials. The cheapest model of TiVo’s
digital video recorder (DVR) cost $499.
(Econ, 4/17/04, p.61)(Econ, 4/25/09, p.68)
1999 Jun 7, Scientists at Lawrence
Livermore Labs reported the creation of elements 118 and 116 from
krypton-86 and Lead-208. In 2002 Victor Ninov was accused of faking the
data. Spurious data by Ninov was also reported on elements 110 and 112
from experiments in 1994 and 1996.
(SFC, 6/8/99, p.A1)(SSFC, 7/21/02, p.A3)
1999 Jul 31, NASA controllers
planned to send the $63 million Lunar Prospector crashing into the
Mawson crater located in the south pole. They hoped to churn up some
water vapor for possible detection. Evidence of the crash at 2:51 PDT
was not detected.
(SFC, 6/3/99, p.A4)(SFEC, 8/1/99, p.A3)
1999 Aug 12, The invention of a
new rechargeable battery with a 50% longer life span was announced by
researchers in Israel.
(WSJ, 8/13/99, p.A1)
1999 Dec, Two variants were
adopted for the 1997 IEEE 802.11 standard on wireless communications:
802.11a for the 5.8GHz band and 802.11b for the 2.4GHz band. The
technology was soon named Wi-Fi.
(Econ, 2/14/04, Survey p.27)
2000 Jun 16, Inacom Corp., once
the world’s largest computer dealer, sent most of its 5,100 employees
an e-mail directing them to a toll-free phone number with a recorded
message that fired them.
(WSJ, 11/8/00, p.A1)
2000 Aug 13, It was reported that
physicist Humphrey Maris of Brown Univ. had reported findings in June
to the Quantum Fluids and Solids Conference that challenged the
indivisibility of electrons.
(SFEC, 8/13/00, p.A1)
2000 Aug 30, It was reported that
computer scientists had created a robot to design and build other
robots almost entirely without human help.
(SFC, 8/31/00, p.A1)
2000 Sep 18, It was reported that
scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab had fashioned the smallest
transistor using a buckyball, single molecule of carbon-60.
(SFC, 9/18/00, p.A6)
2000 Nov 16, The Internet Corp.
for Assigned Names and Numbers adopted 7 new domains: .aero for
airports, .biz for businesses, .coop for business cooperatives, .info
for general use, .museum for accredited museums, .name for individuals,
and .pro for professionals.
(SFC, 11/17/00, p.A1)
2000 Nov, Honda introduced its
4-foot bipedal Asimo robot.
(WSJ, 9/4/01, p.A8)
2000 Dec 13, It was reported that
scientists had decoded the genome of Arabidopsis thaliana, a common
spindly weed, making it the 1st plant to have its genetic material
fully described.
(SFC, 12/14/00, p.A11)
2000 In Haines, Alaska, Dave Pahl
created his Hammer Museum, a tribute to the oldest human tool. In 2007
he struggled to retain the name as the Armand Hammer Museum of Art
changed its name to the Hammer Museum of Art and applied for a
trademark to the name.
(WSJ, 10/5/07, p.A1)
2000-2006 The Interphone study on mobile the threat
to human health from mobile phone use cost $30 million and involved
some 50 scientists working in 13 countries. Results proved very
confusing and inconclusive.
(Econ, 9/27/08, p.93)
2001 Jan 26, Scientists announced
that they had decoded the genetic blueprint of rice. It was the 1st
important plant to have its genome decoded.
(SFC, 1/27/01, p.A7)
2001 Mar 26, It was reported that
scientists had detected high-energy neutrinos for the 1st time in the
Antarctic Muon and neutrino Detector Array (Amanda).
(SFC, 3/26/01, p.A6)
2001 Apr 23, It was reported that
scientists in Chicago had connected a lamprey eel’s brain to
microprocessors to steer a robotic device toward light.
(SFC, 4/23/01, p.A6)
2001 Apr, Linus Torvalds, founder
of Linux, authored "Just for Fun: The Story of an Accidental
Revolutionary."
(SSFC, 4/15/01, p.B2)
2001 Jun 4, Hewlett-Packard agreed
to pay $400 million to Pitney Bowes to settle a 6-year-old patent
dispute over printer technology.
(SFC, 6/5/01, p.C1)
2001 Jul 5, Scientists at Delft
Univ. of Tech. in the Netherlands reported the creation of
nanotechnology transistors built from a single molecule.
(SFC, 7/6/01, p.B3)
2001 Aug 21, It was reported that
nuclear waste researchers had developed a process, pyroprocessing, to
remove long term radioactive elements from waste and transmute them to
less radioactive elements.
(WSJ, 8/21/01, p.A1)
2001 Aug 31, It was reported that
scientists at Lucent Tech. achieved superconductivity with carbon-60
(buckyballs) at minus 249 degrees by combining the carbon molecules
with compounds of chloroform and bromoform.
(SFC, 8/31/01, p.B3)
2001 Sep 3, It was reported that
scientists at the Max Planck Inst. for Biochemistry in Germany had
affixed snail neurons to transistor chips and demonstrated
communication.
(SFC, 9/3/01, p.A4)
2001 Oct 3, Apple introduced the
iPod, a breakthrough MP3 music player that packs up to 1,000 CD-quality
songs into an ultra-portable, 6.5 ounce design that fits in your
pocket, at a cost of $399.
(www.apple.com/pr/library/2001/oct/23ipod.html)(Econ, 10/4/08, p.14)
2001 Oct 17, Researchers at
Lucent’s Bell Labs reported the development of a tiny new transistor
made of a simple cluster of organized molecules.
(SFC, 10/18/01, p.D2)
2001 Nov 17, John M. Dawson,
plasma physics expert, died at age 71. He is considered the father of
computer-simulated plasma models and of plasma-based particle
accelerators.
(SFC, 12/1/01, p.A19)
2001 Nov 20, Jeff Hawkins,
inventor of the Palm computer, was reported to hold that the brain
works by anticipating and completing patterns more than it does through
inputs and outputs of information.
(WSJ, 11/20/01, p.B1)
2001 Dec 3, A test US anti-missile
launched from Kwajalein atoll in the Marshall Islands successfully hit
a dummy warhead from Vandenberg Air Base in California, 4,800 miles
away.
(SFC, 12/4/01, p.A4)
2001 Dec 3, Dean Kamen, inventor,
unveiled his battery-powered, 12 mph Segway Human Transporter in NYC.
Kamen had spent $100 million over the last decade to develop the
vehicle. In 2003 Steve Kemper authored "Code Name Ginger," the story of
the Segway's development.
(SFC, 12/4/01, p.A2)(WSJ, 6/17/03, p.D5)
2001 Dec 4, Edwin Huffine, US
forensic scientist, launched a new DNA ID software program developed
with a team of Bosnian experts at the Sarajevo-based Int’l. Commission
for Missing Persons (ICMP). The program used kinship analysis.
(SFC, 12/4/01, p.A3)
2001 Dec 4, Kodak and Sanyo
prepared to invest $350 million to make flat panel color displays using
organic light-emitting diode technology for hand-held devices.
(WSJ, 12/4/01, p.B7)
2001 Dec 12, David Criswell,
director of the Univ. of Houston Space Systems Operations, proposed a
"Lunar Solar Power System" to collect solar energy on the moon, convert
it to microwaves, and beam it to Earth for electrical power.
(SFC, 12/13/01, p.A5)
2001 The US National Institutes of
Health began its Mammalian Gene Collection (MGC) project to isolate
each of the estimated 30,000 human genes along with a full set of mouse
genes.
(SFC, 4/23/01, p.B1)
2001 Ben Kacyra (b.1949),
Iraqi-born founder of SF Bay Area firm Cyra Technologies, sold the
company’s new laser mapping tool to Leica Geosystems of Switzerland.
The device was created to produce digital blueprints of 3-dimensional
objects.
(SSFC, 7/22/07, p.C3)
2001 Alexander Gorlov, a Russian
civil engineer who worked on the Aswan High Dam, won the Edison patent
for his invention of a turbine that could extract power from
free-flowing currents.
(Econ, 3/8/08, TQ p.12)
2002 Mar 5, It was reported that a
team of physicists claimed nuclear fusion utilizing a burst of
ultrasound on a bubble of gases in a phenomenon known as
sonoluminescence. Details were to appear the journal Science.
(SFC, 3/5/02, p.A4)
2002 Aug 7, Ford Motor Co. and
Canadian fuel cell developer Ballard Power Systems Inc. jointly
unveiled a hydrogen-fueled internal combustion engine-driven generator
they said could help pave the way toward the commercialization of fuel
cell technology.
(Reuters, 8/7/02)
2002 Dec 31, In China a
German-designed magnetic-levitation train hit 260 mph on its maiden run
between Shanghai and Pudong airport.
(SFC, 1/1/03, p.A10)
2002 Hewlett-Packard introduced
the 1st rewritable DVD system compatible with standard DVD players.
(SFC, 1/13/01, p.A15)
2002 The grid emerged as a linkage
of many servers into a single system to tackle complex computing tasks.
The system was created to do work previously possible only with
supercomputers. The Global Grid Forum built on the Globus software
developed by Ian Foster and Carl Kesselman.
(NW, 9/16/02, p.34D)
2002 The Auto-ID centre came up
with a standard for a new, stripped-down RFID chip that stores 96 bits
of information. Radio frequency identification quickly became
commonplace for tagging retail items.
(Econ, 6/26/04, p.63)
2003 Jan 23, Graham Hawkes (54)
took his Deep Flight Aviator, a winged submersible, on a demonstration
run in SF Bay.
(SFC, 1/24/03, p.A21)
2003 Jan 30, Spencer Abraham, US
Energy Secretary, said the US would rejoin the $5 billion int’l.
project to build an experimental fusion reactor. The US had left the
project in 1998.
(SFC, 1/31/03, p.A6)
2003 Jun 13, Scientists reported
that the new hydrogen fuel cell technology could lead to greater
destruction of the ozone layer that protects Earth from cancer-causing
ultraviolet rays.
(AP, 6/13/03)
2003 Jul 17, A US company launched
Mexican sales of microchips that can be implanted under a person's skin
and used to confirm health history and identity.
(AP, 7/17/03)
2003 Oct 13, It was reported that
scientists in North Carolina had built a brain implant that lets
monkeys control a robotic arm with their thoughts.
(SFC, 10/13/03, p.A1)
2003 Two books on the new
nanotechnology: "Nanocosm" by William Illsey Atkinson and "The
next Big Thing Is Really Small" by Jack Uldrich with Deb Newberry.
(WSJ, 5/23/03, p.W14)
2003 Pres. Bush signed the
National Nanotechnology Initiative into law. The current market value
of the industry was about $1 billion.
(Econ, 1/17/04, p.52)
2003 The Int’l. Civil Aviation
Association (ICOA) issued technical specifications for passports to
contain an integrated circuit to be activated by a radio signal to
broadcast stored data.
(Econ, 2/19/05, p.75)
2003 Scientists at the Univ. of
Texas found a way to spin nanotubes into fibers to make the world’s
toughest polymer.
(Econ, 1/1/05, Survey p.5)
2003 Near-field communications
(NFC) was finalized as an industry standard. The wireless technology
operated over very short ranges measured in centimeters.
(Econ, 12/10/05, TQ p.22)
2004 Jan 1, China began running
the world's 1st commercially operated maglev train in Shanghai. The
German-built system spanned 18 miles.
(SFC, 1/10/04, p.E4)
2004 Jan 28, Scientists said they
had created a new form of matter, called a fermionic condensate, and
predicted it could help lead to the next generation of superconductors
for use in electricity generation, more efficient trains and countless
other applications. It is the sixth known form of matter, after gases,
solids, liquids, plasma and a Bose-Einstein condensate, created only in
1995.
(Reuters, 1/29/04)
2004 Jan 30, In Japan a judge
ruled that Shuji Nakamura, inventor of the blue light-emitting diode
(LED), should share in the profits of his former employers. He was
awarded $190 million in a case against Nichia Corp.
(Econ, 2/7/04, p.60)
2004 Apr 13, The FDA approved a
clinical trial by Cyberkinetics on implants in humans for a
brain-computer interface.
(SFC, 4/14/04, p.C8)
2004 Jun 12, It was reported that
engineers had created a “metal-rubber,” a substance that conducts
electricity like metal, but also stretches like rubber up to 250% of
its original length.
(Econ, 6/12/04, p.14)
2004 Oct 13, The US government
approved a microchip that can be implanted under the skin to provide
doctors with patient data. Two weeks after the device's approval took
effect on Jan. 10, 2005, Tommy Thompson left his Cabinet post, and
within five months was a board member of VeriChip Corp. and Applied
Digital Solutions. He was compensated in cash and stock options. In
2007 it was reported that a series of veterinary and toxicology
studies, dating to the mid-1990s, stated that chip implants had
"induced" malignant tumors in some lab mice and rats.
(SFC, 10/14/04, p.A1)(AP, 9/9/07)
2004 Dec 15, A walking, talking
child-size robot from Honda Motor Co. managed an easy, although
comical, jog in the Japanese automaker's latest quest to imitate human
movement.
(AP, 12/15/04)
2004 In 2004 David V. Herlihy
authored “Bicycle: The History.”
(WSJ, 10/22/04, p.W5)
2004 Hong Kong-based Ruyan, which
means "like smoking," introduced the world's first electronic
cigarette. It patented its ultrasonic atomizing technology, in which
nicotine is dissolved in a cartridge containing propylene glycol, the
liquid that is vaporized in smoke machines in nightclubs or theaters
and is commonly used as a solvent in food.
(AP, 2/2809)
2004-2005 In Canada Mike Lazaridis, co-founder of
Research In Motion (RIM), founded the Institute for Quantum Computing
(IQC) at Ontario’s Univ. of Waterloo. He linked the institute to the
university’s nanotechnology program and provided donations totaling
C$50 million.
(Econ, 3/19/05, p.68)(Econ, 9/23/06, TQ p.36)
2005 Feb 1, HP researchers
introduced groundbreaking nanotechnology that could replace traditional
transistors on computer chips.
(SFC, 2/1/05, p.A1)
2005 Feb 17, Researchers
demonstrated a robot that used a “passive-dynamic design” to learn
walking step by step like a toddler.
(SFC, 2/18/05, p.A2)
2005 Apr, Moshe Alamaro of MIT
proposed the creation of small, man-made cyclones to cool the ocean and
prevent large natural hurricanes.
(Econ, 6/11/05, TQ p.8)
2005 Neil Gershenfeld authored
“Fab: The coming Revolution on Your Desktop--From Personal Computers to
Personal Fabrication.”
(Econ, 6/11/05, TQ p.37)
2006 Mar 15, It was reported that
Japanese scientists had unveiled a robotic fish that could one day be
used to observe fish in the ocean or survey oil platforms for damage.
(Reuters, 3/15/06)
2006 Apr 22, The 2-day Maker Faire
began in San Mateo, Ca., as a gathering of tinkerers to display their
gadgets.
(Econ, 5/3/08, p.87)(http://makezine.com/faire/2006/)
2006 Sep 18, Researchers at Intel
and UC Santa Barbara announced new technology using lasers on silicon
chips for optical computing. Practical use was thought to be 5-7 years
away.
(SFC, 9/19/06, p.A1)
2006 Dec 13, Peter McColough
(b.1922), former CEO of Xerox (1968-1982), died. He funded the fabled
Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in 1969.
(WSJ, 12/23/06, p.A6)
2007 Jan 5, Hitachi announced the
1st 1-terrabyte hard drive, eclipsing Seagate’s 750 gigabyte drives.
(SFC, 1/5/07, p.C1)
2007 Feb 11, Intel introduced a
new super-processor at the opening of an int’l conference of chip
scientists. The processor would be able to perform over 1 trillion
mathematical calculations per second (teraflop), but commercial use
would not be available for 5 years.
(SFC, 2/12/07, p.A9)
2007 Mar 2, Checkpoint Systems
Inc. said it will provide Reno GmbH with RFID (radio frequency
identification) tags and store tagging systems. Reno GmbH plans to
embed wireless chips in shoes sold at hundreds of stores across the
continent.
(http://tinyurl.com/2cpo45)
2007 Mar 26, Intel Corp. announced
it will build a $2.5 billion chip factory in China, giving the US
company a bigger presence in the booming Chinese market and boosting
Beijing's efforts to attract high-tech investment. Intel also unveiled
a prototype chip that uses optical connections to increase speed.
Products using the technology were expected to appear within 3 years.
(AP, 3/26/07)(WSJ, 3/26/07, p.B6)
2007 Apr 15, Scientists unveiled
the world’s tiniest eyedropper, capable of squeezing out zeptoliter
droplets.
(SFC, 4/16/07, p.A9)
2007 Jun 15, The US Patent and
Trademark office launched a one-year pilot program for a peer review of
patent applications using an internet-based collaboration process.
(Econ, 9/8/07, TQ p.28)
2007 Jun 26, A Japanese robot
maker unveiled what it called the world's first prototype of an
artificial hand with "air muscles" that can do even delicate work like
picking up a raw egg.
(AP, 6/26/07)
2007 Jul 24, Intel Corp. said it
has fabricated the first modulator made from silicon that can encode
data onto a beam of light at a rate of 40 billion bits per second
(gigabits). Such speeds represented a rate 40 times faster than most
corporate data networks.
(WSJ, 1/25/07, p.B4)
2007 Aug 14, It was reported that
Pulickel Ajayan and colleagues at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute had
developed a flexible battery using carbon nanotubes and cellulose.
(www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2007-08-14-2925644111_x.htm)
2007 Aug 31, Leading Japanese
mobile phone carrier NTT DoCoMo Inc. said it will tie up with broadband
provider ACCA Networks to introduce ultra-fast mobile WiMAX technology.
(AFP, 8/31/07)
2007 Sep 10, It was reported that
John Kanzius of Erie, Pa., had accidentally discovered a way to burn
salt water when he tried to desalinate seawater with a radio-frequency
generator he developed to treat cancer. He discovered that as long as
the salt water was exposed to the radio frequencies, it would burn.
(AP, 9/10/07)
2007 Oct 31,
Physicists at UC Berkeley said they had produced the world’s
smallest radio out of a single carbon nanotube, 10,000 times thinner
than human hair. They had it play “Layla” by Derek and the Dominos and
said it could also function as a transmitter.
(SFC, 11/1/07, p.C1)
2007 Oct, The first commercial
wave farm was set up off the coast of Portugal. The system was created
at Pelamis Wave Power, a firm based in Scotland.
(Econ, 6/7/08, TQ p.22)
2007 Nov 12, A new study said US
researchers have developed a method of producing hydrogen gas from
biodegradable organic material, potentially providing an abundant
source of this clean-burning fuel. The method used by engineers at
Pennsylvania State University combines electron-generating bacteria and
a small electrical charge in a microbial fuel cell to produce hydrogen
gas.
(AFP, 11/13/07)
2007 Nov 19, Amazon.com began
selling its Kindle electronic book reader, the size of a paperback, for
$399. It was able to hold 200 volumes.
(WSJ, 11/20/07, p.B1)(Econ, 10/25/08, SR p.11)
2007 Dec 6, IBM reported that it
has made a breakthrough in converting electrical signals into light
pulses that brings closer the day when supercomputing, which now
requires huge machines, will be done on a single chip.
(Reuters, 12/6/07)
2007 Bruce D. Abramson authored
“The Secret Circuit: The Little-Known Court Where the Rules of the
Information Age Unfold,” a discussion of the American patent system.
(SSFC, 12/2/07, p.M3)
2008 Feb 11, It was reported that
Ronald Fearing, Berkeley professor in electrical engineering, has
invented a tape-like substance based on the physics used by geckos to
scoot upside-down across ceilings.
(SFC, 2/11/08, p.C1)
2008 Feb 19, Japan’s Toshiba Corp.
announced it would no longer develop, make or market high-definition HD
DVD players and recorders, conceding defeat to the competing Blu-Ray
technology backed by Sony Corp.
(AP, 2/19/08)
2008 May 20, Scientists delivered
a warning about nanotechnology after tests on lab rodents found that
microscopic, needle-like fibers that are already in commercial use led
to lesions similar to those caused by asbestos.
(AFP, 5/20/08)
2008 Jun 6, Pres. Bush signed a
transportation bill that freed $45 million for environmental studies
for a levitating train planned to run from Disneyland to Las
Vegas.
(SFC, 6/7/08, p.C2)
2008 Aug 12, It was reported that
Akron inventor Charlie Grispin, chief technical officer of PolyFlow
Corp., had developed a new process to recycle plastic and that a
demonstration plant in Akron showed how the process broke all manner of
plastics into their base chemicals.
(http://tinyurl.com/6xfw5s)(www.polyflowcorp.com/)
2008 Aug 21, Intel showed off a
wireless electric power system at the California firm's annual
developers forum in San Francisco. Analysts said it could revolutionize
modern life by freeing devices from transformers and wall outlets.
(AFP, 8/22/08)
2008 Sep 10, In Geneva the Large
Hadron Collider, the world's largest particle collider, passed its
first major tests by firing two beams of protons in opposite directions
around a 17-mile (27-kilometer) underground ring in what scientists
hope is the next great step to understanding the makeup of the
universe. On Sep 19 it started leaking helium and had to be turned off.
The technical problems delayed for at least two months the quest for
scientists to learn more about the nature of the universe and the
origins of all matter.
(AP, 9/10/08)(AP, 9/20/08)(Econ, 9/27/08, p.96)
2008 Sep 22, It was reported that
SanDisk, a maker of flash memory, was teaming with 4 top music labels
to roll out a new music medium based on its microSD cards, which would
feature pre-loaded albums and additional content and compete with the
declining CD market.
(SFC, 9/22/08, p.D1)
2008 Sep 23, Google and T-Mobile
unveiled the T-Mobile G1, the first phone to use the Google’s Android
operating system.
(SFC, 9/24/08, p.C1)
2008 Oct, Solyndra, a
Fremont, Ca., company, launched a new type of solar panel using
lightweight glass tubes. It expected installation costs to be half that
of conventional panels.
(Econ, 10/11/08, p.110)
2008 Oct 30, The Economist
magazine presented its annual innovation awards. Winners included
Martin Evans, for stem cell research at Cardiff Univ.; Jimmy Wales of
Wikipedia for the promotion online public collaboration; Matti
Makkonen, a Finnish engineer, for the development of Short Message
Service (SMS), better known as text messaging; Steve Chen and Chad
Hurley of YouTube, for the creating of an easy way to share video;
Arthur Rosenfeld of Lawrence Berkeley for his promotion of energy
efficiency; Sumio Iijima for the discovery of carbon nanotubes; Bill
and Melinda Gates for the developing a philanthropic support platform;
and Nokia Corp. For its ability to respond to social and technological
trends.
(Econ, 12/6/08, TQ p.13)
2009 Jan 29, India began a plan to
issue a new biometric identity card to its whole 1.2 billion
population. On June 25 Nandan Nilekani, a co-founder of Infosys, was
given ministerial status and appointed to run the scheme.
(Econ, 7/4/09, p.36)(http://tinyurl.com/nvfahh)
2009 Feb 11, BrightSource Energy
of Oakland, California, announced that it will sell southern California
Edison 1,300 megawatts of electricity from 7 large solar plants planned
for the California desert. This was believed to be the world’s largest
solar deal to date.
(SFC, 2/12/09, p.A1)
2009 Feb 16, In Spain Samsung of
South Korea unveiled the world's first solar-powered mobile phone at an
industry show where the sector is showcasing the new technology it
hopes will drive demand through the economic crisis.
(AFP, 2/16/09)
2009 Apr 25, It was reported the
Behrad Khamesee and colleagues at the Univ. of Waterloo in Ontario,
Canada, have built a micro-robot with gripper arms that levitates.
(Econ, 4/25/09, p.85)
2009 May 13, A new, 2-person,
research submarine, the Deep Flight Super Falcon, was unveiled at the
California Academy of Sciences in SF. It was designed by marine
engineer Graham Hawkes. Its $1.5 million cost was underwritten by
venture capitalist Tom Perkins. It was scheduled to begin exploring
Monterey Bay in June.
(SFC, 5/14/09, p.B5)
2009 May 18, It was reported that
South Korea's top technology university has developed a plan to power
electric cars through recharging strips embedded in roadways that use a
technology to transfer energy found in some electric toothbrushes.
(Reuters, 5/18/09)
2009 May 31, A robotic vehicle
named Nereus, funded by the National Science Foundation's Division of
Ocean Sciences, made the deepest ocean dive ever - 6.8 miles (10,902
meters). At this depth, Nereus was able to explore the Challenger Deep,
the ocean's lowest point, located in the Mariana Trench in the western
Pacific.
(www.livescience.com/environment/090603-ocean-abyss.html)
2009 Jun 6, Palm Inc.
introduced its new smart phone called Pre. Two days later Apple
unveiled updated versions of its popular iPhone.
(Econ, 6/13/09, p.66)
2009 Aug 28, Denmark announced the
5 winners of its biennial Index design awards. The winners included:
Kiva.org, of the SF Bay Area for bringing money and intellectual
capital to the working poor; Better Place, of the SF Bay Area for a
clean energy system for all-electric cars; the Freeplay fetal heart
rate monitor; Philip Design for its India-team designed safe kitchen
stove for one-room homes; and Rotterdam-based Pig 05049 for its list of
185 good and bad products made from a single pig.
(SFC, 8/29/09, p.E1)
2009 Oct 1, Mattel planned to
release its Mindflex toy, which allowed users to lift a ball and send
it through an obstacle course using brain control interface technology.
(SSFC, 9/6/09, p.A8)
2009 Sep 18, South Korean
scientists said they had developed a new transistor which moves faster
and consumes less energy than existing semiconductors, a technology
opening the way for no-booting computers.
(AP, 9/18/09)
Go to http://www.timelinesdb.com
Subject = Technology
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