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ESP Timelines

Comparative Timelines

The ESP Timeline (one of the site's most popular features) has been completely updated to allow the user to select (using the timeline controls above each column) different topics for the left and right sides of the display.

Select:

New Left Column

New Left Column

Dates

Decade

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New Right Column

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1540

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1541

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1542

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1550

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1551

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1552

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1553

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1554

Venetian mathematician Giambattista Benedetti publishes two editions of Demonstratio proportionum motuum localium, developing his new doctrine of the speed of bodies in free fall.

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1555

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1556

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1557

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1558

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1559

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1560

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1561

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1562

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1563

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1564

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Roger Taverner writes his Arte of Surveyinge.

1565

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1566

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1567

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1568

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1569

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Giovanni Padovani publishes a detailed treatise on the construction of sundials, Opus de compositione et usu multiformium horologiorum solarium, in Venice.

1570

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1571

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1572

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1573

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1574

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1575

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1576

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1577

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English seaman William Bourne publishes a manual, Inventions or Devises, Very Necessary for all Generalles and Captaines, as wel by Sea as by Land, including an early theoretical description of a submarine.

1578

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1579

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1580

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1581

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1582

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1583

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1584

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1585

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1586

Galileo publishes La Billancetta, describing an accurate balance to weigh objects in air or water.

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1587

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1588

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1589

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1590

Glass lenses are developed in the Netherlands and used for the first time in microscopes and telescopes.

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1591

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1592

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1593

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Bevis Bulmer sets up a system at Blackfriars, London, for pumping a public water supply.

1594

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1595

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1596

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1597

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1598

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1599

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1600

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1601

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1609

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1610

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1611

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The first flintlock musket likely created for Louis XIII of France by gunsmith Marin Bourgeois.

1612

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Richard Braithwaite coined the phrase ‘computer’.

1613

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1614

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1615

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1616

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1617

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1619

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1620

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1621

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image Slide Rule invented by William Oughtred

1622

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Francis Bacon develops a method of steganography that used an underlying binary code for the letters of the alphabet.

image Wilhelm Schickard designs a calculating machine.

1623

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1624

Galileo presents to Cesi, founder of the Lincean Academy, a "little eyeglass" (a microscope). The invention will enable the Linceans to study natural objects with unprecedented precision. They will start with bees, then move on to flies and dust mites.

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1625

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1626

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1627

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1628

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1629

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1632

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1633

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1634

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1635

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1636

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1637

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1638

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1639

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1640

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1641

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Pascal's calculator or the Pascaline constructed

image The mezzotint printmaking method was invented by the German amateur artist Ludwig von Siegen. Mezzotint is a printmaking process of the intaglio family, technically a drypoint method. It was the first tonal method to be used, enabling half-tones to be produced without using line- or dot-based techniques like hatching, cross-hatching or stipple. Mezzotint achieves tonality by roughening the plate with thousands of little dots made by a metal tool with small teeth, called a "rocker." In printing, the tiny pits in the plate hold the ink when the face of the plate is wiped clean. A high level of quality and richness in the print can be achieved.

1642

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1643

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1644

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1645

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1646

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1647

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1648

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1649

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1650

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1651

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1652

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1653

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1654

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1655

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1656

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1657

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1658

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1659

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1660

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1661

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1662

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1663

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1664

image Isaac Newton discovers that white light is composed of different colors.

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1665

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Samuel Morland builds a mechanical calculator that will add and subtract

1666

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1667

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1668

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1669

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1670

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1671

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image Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz invents the Staffelwalze (stepped drum, or stepped reckoner), the first mechanical calculator that could perform all four mathematical operations. Its intricate precision gearwork, however, was somewhat beyond the fabrication technology of the time; mechanical problems, in addition to a design flaw in the carry mechanism, prevented the machines from working reliably. Despite the mechanical flaws, it suggested possibilities to future calculator builders. The operating mechanism, invented by Leibniz, called the stepped cylinder or Leibniz wheel, was used in many calculating machines for 200 years, and into the 1970s with the Curta hand calculator. In discussing his invention, Leibniz wrote Indignum enim est excellentium virorum horas servii calculandi labore perire, qui Machina adhibita vilissimo cuique secure transcribi posset — For it is unworthy of distinguished men to waste their time with slavish calculations, which can be done safely with the use of this machine by anyone else.

1672

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1673

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1674

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1675

The English physicist Sir Isaac Newton argues that light is composed of particles, which are refracted by acceleration toward a denser medium, and posits the existence of “aether” to transmit forces between the particles.

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1676

image The first quantitative estimate of the speed of light was made in 1676 by Danish astronomer Ole Rømer. From the observation that the periods of Jupiter's innermost moon Io appeared to be shorter when the Earth was approaching Jupiter than when receding from it, he concluded that light travels at a finite speed, and estimated that it takes light 22 minutes to cross the diameter of Earth's orbit. Christiaan Huygens combined this estimate with an estimate for the diameter of the Earth's orbit to obtain an estimate of speed of light of 220000 km/s, 26% lower than the actual value.

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1677

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1678

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1679

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1680

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1681

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1682

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1683

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1684

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1685

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1686

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1687

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1688

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1689

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1690

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1691

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1692

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1693

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1694

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1695

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1696

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1697

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1698

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1699

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1700

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1701

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1702

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Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz invents the Binary System

1703

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1704

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1705

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1706

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1707

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1708

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1709

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Jakob Christoph Le Blon, an engraver, invents three-color printing.

1710

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1711

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1712

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1713

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image Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit constructs a mercury thermometer with a temperature scale.

1714

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1715

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1716

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image Johann Heinrich Schulze makes fleeting sun prints of words by using stencils, sunlight, and a bottled mixture of chalk and silver nitrate in nitric acid, simply as an interesting way to demonstrate that the substance inside the bottle darkens where it is exposed to light.

1717

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Porcelain is first manufactured in Vienna.

1718

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1719

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1720

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1721

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1722

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1723

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1724

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1725

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1726

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Johann Heinrich Schulze discovered that silver nitrate darkened upon exposure to light.

1727

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1728

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1729

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1730

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1731

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1732

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1733

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1734

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1735

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1736

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1737

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1738

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1739

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1740

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1741

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The Microscope Made Easy, by Henry Baker, introduces the construction and use of the microscope to the layman.

1742

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1743

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1744

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1745

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1746

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1747

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1748

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1749

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1750

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1751

image Benjamin Franklin describes electricity as a single fluid and distinguishes between positive and negative electricity in Experiments and Observations on Electricity. He shows that electricity can magnetize and demagnetize iron needles.

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1752

image The lightning conductor is invented by Benjamin Franklin, whose experiments with lightning include a flying a kite in a thunderstorm. The kite experiment shows that lightning is a form of electricity, similar to the discharge from a Leyden jar.

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1753

image Russian scientist Georg Wilhelm Richmann is killed performing a lightning experiment in St. Petersburg. Richmann is electrocuted in while trying to quantify the response of an insulated rod to a nearby storm. The incident, reported worldwide, underscored the dangers inherent in experimenting with insulated rods and in using protective rods with faulty ground connections.

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1754

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1755

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1756

image William Cullen observes the cooling effect of evaporating liquids and publishes the results in An Essay on the Cold Produced by Evaporating Fluids and Other Means of Producing Cold.

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1757

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1758

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1759

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1760

image Photometria by German physicist Johann Lambert is an investigation of light reflections from planets, introducing the term ALBEDO (whiteness) for the differing reflectivities of planetary bodies.

image In experiments with primitive apparatus, Daniel Bernoulli decides that the electrical force obeys an inverse square law similar to that of gravity.

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1761

image Joseph Black discovers latent heat by finding that ice, when melting, absorbs heat without changing in temperature. Later he measures the latent heat of steam — that is, the heat required to keep water boiling without raising its temperature.

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1762

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1763

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1764

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1765

image Leonhard Euler gives a general treatment of the motion of rigid bodies, including the precession and nutation of earth, in Theoria motus corporum solidorum seu rigidorum (Theory of the motion of solid and rigid bodies).

image Bifocal spectacles are invented by Benjamin Franklin.

First fire escape patented, consisting of a wicker basket on a pulley and chain.

1766

image Horace-Bénédict de Saussure invents the electrometer, a device for measuring the electric potential by means of the attraction or repulsion of charged bodies.

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1767

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1768

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image James Watt patents the modern steam engine, which finds wide use in manufacturing. It is an early milestone of the Industrial Revolution.

1769

image John Robison measures the repulsion between two charged bodies and shows that this force is inversely proportional to the distance between the two bodies.

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1770

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1771

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1772

Swedish scientist Johan Carl Wilcke calculates the latent heat of ice (the amount of heat absorbed when ice turns into water).

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1773

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1774

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1775

image Alessandro Volta describes his electrofore perpetuo device for producing and storing a charge of static electricity. This device replaces the Leyden jar and eventually leads to modern electrical condensers.

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1776

image Pierre-Simon Laplace states that if all of the forces on all objects in any one time are known, then the future can be completely predicted.

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1777

image Charles-Augustin Coulomb invents the torsion balance.

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1778

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1779

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1780

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1781

image Coloumb's Théorie des machiones simple (Theory of simple machines) is a study of friction.

Johan Carl Wilcke introduces the concept of SPECIFIC HEAT.

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1782

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image Joseph and Jacques Montgolfier make first public balloon flight.

1783

image Horace-Bénédict de Saussure's Essais sur l'hygromé (Essay on measuring humidity) describes how to construct a hygrometer from human hair that can measure relative humidity.

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1784

George Atwood accurately determines the acceleration of a free-falling body.

First balloon flight across English Channel (Jean-Pierre Blanchard and John Jeffries).

image French balloonists Jean-François Pilatre de Rozier and Jules Romain are killed when their Royal Balloon crashes near Boulogne, France, June 15, 1785, in what is considered the first aerial disaster.

1785

image Couloumb makes precise measurements of the forces of attraction and repulsion between charged bodies and between magnetic poles, using a torsion balance, demonstrating conclusively that electric charge and magnetism obey inverse-square laws like that of gravity. He also discovers that electrically charged bodies discharge spontaneously. In the 20th century, it is found that cosmic radiation is responsible for this discharge.

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1786

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1787

image Jacques-Alexandre Charles shows that different gases expand by the same amount for a given rise in temperature (Charles Law).

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1788

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Bourbon Whiskey is first created by Elijah Craig in Bourbon, Kentucky.

1789

The French chemist Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier definitively states the Law of Conservation of Mass (although others had previously expressed similar ideas, including the ancient Greek Epicurus, the medieval Persian Nasir al-Din al-Tusi and the 18th Century scientists Mikhail Lomonosov, Joseph Black, Henry Cavendish and Jean Rey), and identifies (albeit slightly incorrectly) 23 elements which he claims can not be broken down into simpler substances.

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1790

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Charles Babbage is Born

John Stone, Concord, Massachusetts, patents a pile driver.

image New York City traffic regulation creates first one-way street.

1791

image Luigi Galvani announces that electricity applied to severed frog's legs causes them to twitch and that frogs legs twitch in the presence of two different metals with no electric current present. The latter discovery eventually leads to Alessandro Volta's developing the electric battery.

image Pierre Prévost develops his theory of exchanges of radiation of heat. He correctly shows that cold is merely the absence of heat and that all bodies continually radiate heat. If they seem not to radiate heat, it means that they are in heat equilibrium with their environment.

Guillotine first used (to execute highwayman Nicolas J. Pelletier).

1792

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France becomes first country to use the metric system.

image Eli Whitney invents the cotton gin (cotton enGINe), a machine that quickly and easily separates cotton fibers from their seeds, allowing for much greater productivity than manual cotton separation. By reducing the labor of removing seeds, the cotton gin made cotton growing more profitable, thereby raising demand for slave labor. The first federal census of 1790 counted 697,897 slaves; by 1810, there were 1.2 million slaves, a 70 percent increase. Slavery spread from the seaboard to some of the new western territories and states as new cotton fields were planted, and by 1830 it thrived in more than half the continent. Within 10 years after the cotton gin was put into use, the value of the total United States crop leaped from $150,000 to more than $8 million.

1793

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1794

image Alessandro Volta demonstrates that the electric force observed by Galvani is not connected with living creatures, but can be obtained whenever two different metals are placed in a conducting fluid.

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1795

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1796

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1797

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1798

Henry Cavendish determines the mass of Earth by measuring the gravity between two small masses and two large masses. This gives the gravitational constant G, which was the only unknown in Newton's equations. Solving for G enables Cavendish to establish that Earth is about 5.5 times as dense as water.

image Enquiry concerning the source of heat which is excited by friction by Count Rumford (Benjamin Thompson) describes his experiments with boring cannons that show that the caloric theory of heat cannot be true, and that heat should be considered a kind of motion.

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1799

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image Thomas Wedgwood conceives of making permanent pictures of camera images by using a durable surface coated with a light-sensitive chemical. He succeeds only in producing silhouettes and other shadow images, and is unable to make them permanent.

1800

image Alessandro Volta announces his invention, made in 1799, of the electric battery, also known as the Voltaic pile. It consists of a stack of alternating zinc and silver discs separated by felt soaked in brine. It is the first source of a steady electric current.

image William Herschel's "An investigation of the powers of prismatic colors to heat and illuminate objects" tells of his discovery of infrared radiation. While investigating the power of different parts of the spectrum to heat a thermometer, he finds that invisible light beyond the red produces the most heat.

(no entry for this year)

1801

image The English scientist Thomas Young demonstrates, in his famous double-slit experiment, the interference of light and concludes that light is a wave, not a particle as Sir Isaac Newton had ruled.

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1802

image Thomas Young's On the theory of light and colors is the first of three pivotal papers describing his wave theory of light.

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1803

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1804

John Leslie's An experimental inquiry into the nature and propagation of heat establishes that the transmission of heat through radiation has the same properties as the propagation of light.

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1805

image Pierre-Simon Laplace measures molecular forces in liquids and announces his theory of capillary forces.

The English chemist John Dalton develops his atomic theory, proposing that each chemical element is composed of atoms of a single unique type, and that, though they are both immutable and indestructible, they can combine to form more complex structures.

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1806

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image Robert Fulton develops the first practical steamboat, the Clermont, which sails from New York City to Albany and back.

1807

image Thomas Young introduces the concept of, and is the first to use the word, ENERGY.

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1808

image Étienne-Louis Malus discovers that reflected light is polarized and introduces the term POLARIZATION.

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1809

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1810

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1811

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1812

image William Hyde Wollaston invents the camera lucida, a device for projecting an image onto a flat surface, such as drawing paper, on which the object can then be traced.

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1813

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1814

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Ada, Lady Lovelace, is Born

1815

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image Nicéphore Niépce succeeds in making negative photographs of camera images on paper coated with silver chloride, but cannot adequately "fix" them to stop them from darkening all over when exposed to light for viewing.

1816

image Augustin Fresnel demonstrates with his mirror experiment the wave nature of light. He also gives an explanation of polarization.

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1817

image image Thomas Young and Augustin Fresnel demonstrated that light waves must be transverse vibrations.

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1818

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1819

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The Arithmometer was the first commercially successful mechanical calculator patented

1820

image André-Marie Ampère formulates one of the basic laws of electromagnetism, the right-hand rule for the influence of an electric current on the magnet and demonstrates that two wires that are carrying an electric current will attract or repel each other, depending on whether the occurrence are in opposite where the same directions.

image Dominique-François Arago discovers the magnetic effect of electricity passing through a copper wire, demonstrating that iron is not necessary for magnetism.

image Augustin-Jean Fresnel invents the so-called Fresnel lens, a lens used in lighthouses.

image The science of electrodynamics is born with the announcement of Hans Christian Ørsted's discovery of electromagnetism.

image Michael Faraday invents the electric motor and generator.

1821

(no entry for this year)

Charles Babbage takes first steps in the construction of machines that would compute numbers

image Nicéphore Niépce abandons silver halide photography as hopelessly impermanent and tries using thin coatings of Bitumen of Judea on metal and glass. He creates the first fixed, permanent photograph, a copy of an engraving of Pope Pius VII, by contact printing in direct sunlight without a camera or lens. It is later destroyed; the earliest surviving example of his "heliographic process" is from 1825.

1822

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image Physicist Michael Faraday (1791-1867) describes the liquification of chlorine in On fluid chlorine. Faraday finds that gasses of certain kinds, when kept under constant pressure, will condense until they cool. This latter discovery ushers in the beginning of mechanical methods of refrigeration.

Small-scale drilling for oil begins at Baku, a Russian port city on the west coast of the Caspian Sea, now the capital of Azerbaijan. The drilling marks the beginning of the modern petroleum industry, and by 1900 nearly half the world's oil will come from the Baku oil fields.

1823

(no entry for this year)

image Nicéphore Niépce makes the first durable, light-fast camera photograph, similar to his surviving 1826-1827 photograph on pewter but created on the surface of a lithographic stone. It is destroyed in the course of subsequent experiments.

1824

image Réflexions sur la puissance motrice du feu (On the motive power of fire) by Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot shows that work is done as heat passes from a high temperature to a low temperature; defines work; hints at the second law of thermodynamics; and suggests internal combustion engines.

The Erie Canal (from Albany to Buffalo, New York) opens on October 26, connecting the Midwestern U.S. with the Atlantic Ocean, via the Great Lakes, and stimulating the development of Fort Dearborn (know today as Chicago), Cleveland and Columbus Ohio, and upstate New York cities like Rochester, Syracuse and Little Falls.

The first passenger steam railway opens, between Stockton and Darlington, England.

1825

(no entry for this year)

image Photograph by Joseph Niépce: View from the Window at Le Gras, the world's first permanent photograph.

image The first photographic images produced by Joseph-Nicéphore Niépce

1826

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1827

image Theory of systems of rays by William Rowan Hamilton is a unification of the study of optics through the principle of "varying action". It contains his correct prediction of conical refraction. When his prediction is verified, he becomes a well-known and is knighted.

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1828

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image The first steam locomotive to operate on a U.S. railroad begins service between Carbondale and Honesdale, Pennsylvania. The engine, "The Stourbridge Lion", has been imported from the Stephenson Engine Works in London.

1829

image Gustave-Gaspard Coriolis coins the term KINETIC ENERGY in On the calculation of mechanical action.

image Joseph Henry shows that passing an electric current through a wire wrapped into coils produces a greater magnetic field than is produced when that same current is passed through a straight wire, and that an insulated wire wrapped around an iron core can produce a powerful electromagnet.

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1830

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1831

Independently, Michael Faraday and Joseph Henry discover that electricity can be induced by changes in a magnetic field (electromagnetic induction), a discovery leading to the first electric generators.

image In November, the New York and Harlem Railroad begins service, and heralds the start of rapid mass transit in New York City. Two horse-drawn rail cars operate every 15 minutes between 14th Street and Prince Street, along the Bowery. The fare is 25 cents.

1832

(no entry for this year)

Ada Lovelace Meets Charles Babbage

1833

image image In correspondence, Michael Faraday and William Whewell introduce the terms ELECTRODE, ANODE, ION, CATHODE, ANION, CATION, ELECTROLYTE, and ELECTROLYSIS.

image Hércules Florence, a French-Brazilian painter and the isolate inventor of photography in Brazil, coined the word photographie for his technique, at least four years before John Herschel coined the English word photography.

image Charles Babbage invents the "analytical engine" — the forerunner of the modern computer.

1834

image Mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855) shows that the origin of the Earth's magnetic field must lie deep inside the Earth. He makes use of the measurements of the magnetic field made by the physicist Paul Erman in 1828.

image Henry Fox Talbot produces durable silver chloride camera negatives on paper and conceives the two-step negative-positive procedure used in most non-electronic photography up to the present.

1835

image Gustave-Gaspard Coriolis's Mémoire sur les equations du mouvement relatif des sytèms de corps (Memoir on the equations of relative movement of systems of bodies) describes the Coriolis effect: the deflection of a moving body caused by Earth's rotation. The Coriolis effect is important in the study of wind. However, the claim that the Coriolis effect determines the direction water rotates when going down a drain is a myth.

Alonzo D. Phillips, a shoemaker from Springfield, Massachusetts, patents the phosphorous match.

1836

image John Frederic Danielle invents the Daniell cell, the first reliable source of electric current, based on the interactions of copper and zinc.

Charles Babbage published a paper describing a mechanical computer that is now known as the Analytical Engine

image Samuel F. B. Morse sends his first message by electric telegraph — "What hath God wrought!" — on an experimental line between Washington DC and Baltimore, Maryland.

1837

(no entry for this year)

The S.S. Sirius and the S. S. Great Western are the first ships powered entirely by steam to cross the Atlantic. Both ships are designed by engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806-1859).

1838

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image Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre perfects and presents the daguerreotype process as the first publicly available photographic process (which for nearly twenty years was also the one most commonly used). To make the image, a daguerreotypist would polish a sheet of silver-plated copper to a mirror finish, treat it with fumes that made its surface light sensitive, expose it in a camera for as long as was judged to be necessary, which could be as little as a few seconds for brightly sunlit subjects or much longer with less intense lighting; make the resulting latent image on it visible by fuming it with mercury vapor; remove its sensitivity to light by liquid chemical treatment, rinse and dry it, then seal the easily marred result behind glass in a protective enclosure.

image Henry Fox Talbot publicly introduces the paper-based process he worked out in 1835, calling it "photogenic drawing", but it requires much longer exposures than the daguerreotype and the results are not as clear and detailed.

image John Herschel introduces hyposulfite of soda (now known as sodium thiosulfate but still nicknamed "hypo") as a highly effective fixer for all silver-based processes. He also makes the first glass negative.

image Sarah Anne Bright creates a series of photograms, six of which are known to still exist. These are the earliest surviving photographic images created by a woman.

image Although a bicycle consisting of a frame and wheels has existed for years, blacksmith Kirkpatrick MacMillan (1813-1878), introduces the first bicycle in its modern form, with brakes and pedals. The bike has iron tires and weighs nearly 60 pounds.

image Inventor Erastus Brigham Bigelow (1814-1879) introduces the power loom in Massachusetts.

image The first electric clock is built by physicist Carl August Steinheil (1801-1870).

1839

The English scientist Michael Faraday concludes from his work on electromagnetism that, contrary to scientific opinion of the time, the divisions between the various kinds of electricity are illusory. He also establishes that magnetism can affect rays of light, and that there is an underlying relationship between the two phenomena.

image First American patent issued in photography to Alexander Wolcott for his camera.

image The first postage stamp, called the "Penny Black" and bearing the image of Queen Victoria, is issued in England.

image The oil-immersion microscope is invented by Giovanni Battista Amici (1786-1863), a former professor of mathematics who is now the director of the observatory at the Royal Museum in Florence, and an astronomer to the Grand Duke of Tuscany. The objective lens of this microscope is immersed in a drop of oil which sits on top of the object under study; this helps to minimize aberrations caused by the light source.

1840

image Alexandre-Edmond Becquerel shows that light can initiate chemical reactions that produce an electric current.

image William Henry Talbot patents the Calotype process, the first negative-positive process making possible the first multiple copies.

image Henry Fox Talbot introduces his patented calotype (or "talbotype") paper negative process, an improved version of his earlier process that greatly reduces the required exposure time.

In Paris, street lights made from arc lamps are demonstrated.

1841

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1842

image German physician and physicist Julius Robert Mayer is the first to state the law of conservation of energy, noting specifically that heat and mechanical energy are two aspects of the same thing.

image On the uniform motion of heat in homogeneous solid bodies, by William Thomson, aka Lord Kelvin (1824-1907), is published. Thomson's concern with the physics of cooling bodies will draw him into debates concerning the age of the Earth. In 1846 he calculates that the Earth can be no more than 100 million years old.

image The change in the observed frequency of waves emitted from a source, moving relative to the observer, is described by Christian Johann Doppler (1803-1853). This phenomenon is now known as the Doppler Effect.

image Jerome Increase Case, a 24 year-old farmer from Oswego County, New York, introduces the J. I. Case Threshing Machine. The J. I. Case Company will manufacture farm equipment and will become the largest thresher producer in the world.

image The first tunnel under the Thames opens on March 25, built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806-1859). {a]The Thames Tunnel{/a} connects Rotherhithe and Wapping, London. Although it was a triumph of civil engineering, the Thames Tunnel was not a financial success. It had cost a fortune to build — £454,000 to dig and another £180,000 to fit out — far exceeding its initial cost estimates. Proposals to extend the entrance to accommodate wheeled vehicles failed owing to cost, and it was only used by pedestrians. It became a major tourist attraction, attracting about two million people a year, each paying a penny to pass through.

1843

image James Prescott Joule determines the mechanical equivalent of heat by measuring the rise in temperature produced in water by stirring it.

image In Hartford, Connecticut, dentist Horace Wells (1815-1848) uses nitrous oxide as an anesthetic; he is the first to do so.

1844

(no entry for this year)

image Francis Ronalds invents the first successful camera for continuous recording (the first "movie camera") of the variations in meteorological and geomagnetic parameters over time. A copy of Ronalds' paper describing describing his device maybe obtained HERE.

image The bridge spanning the Allegheny River, at Pittsburgh, designed by engineer John Augustus Roebling (1806-1869), opens in May. It is the first wire cable suspension aqueduct bridge in the world.

1845

image Michael Faraday relates magnetism to light after finding the magnetic field effects the polarization of light in crystals. He proposes that light may be waves of electromagnetism. He also describes the phenomena of diamagnetism and paramagnetism, which he explains in terms of his concept of a magnetic field.

image Nitroglycerine is discovered by chemist Ascanio Sobrero (1811-1870), although he uses to term "pyroglycerine". Because of the risks involved in its production, it will not be manufactured commercially for more than a decade.

image The lock-stitch sewing machine is patented by Elias Howe (1819-1867).

1846

image James Prescott Joule discovers that the length of an iron bar changes slightly when the bar is magnetized.

image The rotary, or "lightning" printing press is patented by Richard March Hoe (1812-1886). It is used first by the Philadelphia Public Ledger.

1847

image Über die Erhaltung der Kraft ("On the Conservation of Force"), by Hermann Ludwig von Helmholtz (1821-1894), is published. It articulates what later becomes known as the Conservation of Energy.

image Edmond Becquerel makes the first full-color photographs, but they are only laboratory curiosities: an exposure lasting hours or days is required and the colors are so light-sensitive that they sometimes fade right before the viewer's eyes while being examined.

1848

image An absolute scale of temperatures is proposed by William Thomson (1824-1907). Thomson will become Baron Kelvin of Largs, in 1892, and the scale will come to bear his name.

image Armand Hippolyte Louis Fizeau suggests that light from a source of moving away from the observer will be shifted toward the red end of the spectrum, a phenomenon known as redshift. This is closely related to, but not exactly the same as, the Doppler effect.

image A unmanned Montgolfier balloon is used to drop bombs on Venice. This is the first time a bombing has been conducted from the air.

1849

image Armand Hippolyte Louis Fizeau measures the velocity of light in error by measuring the time it takes for a beam of light to pass between the teeth of a rotating gear. The light is reflected by a mirror and stopped by the next tooth of the gear. The result, 315,000 km/se4c (196,000 miles/sec), is within 5% of today's accepted value.

image In describing Sadi Carnot's theory of heat, published in 1824, William Thomson (1824-1907) uses the term THERMODYNAMICS.

image The speed of light is measured by physicist Armand Hippolyte Louis Fizeau (1819-1896) to be approximately 186,000 miles per second.

image "Bibless overalls" made of canvas are sold by the 20 year-old Levi Strauss in San Francisco. Within three years he will switch to denim and dye his pants indigo blue.

1850

image In Über die bewegende Kraft der Wärme, mathematical physicist Rudolf Julius Emanuel Clausius articulates what comes to be known as the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The law states that heat can only be transferred from a warmer body to a colder body. In 1865, he'll restate the Law, saying that in the closed system entropy always increases.

Arithmometer: first commercially successful mechanical calculator launched

image The fast-acting Collodion process invented by Frederick Scott Archer. Images require only two or three seconds of light exposure. Collodion process, mostly synonymous with the "collodion wet plate process", requires the photographic material to be coated, sensitized, exposed and developed within the span of about fifteen minutes, necessitating a portable darkroom for use in the field. Collodion is normally used in its wet form, but can also be used in humid ("preserved") or dry form, at the cost of greatly increased exposure time. The latter made the dry form unsuitable for the usual portraiture work of most professional photographers of the 19th century. The use of the dry form was therefore mostly confined to landscape photography and other special applications where minutes-long exposure times were tolerable.

image Isaac Singer patents the continuous-stitch sewing machine.

The Erie Railroad, now controlled by Daniel Drew, becomes the first rail line connecting the Great Lakes with New York City, and begins to compete with the Erie Canal as a transportation route.

1851

image Léon Foucault demonstrates that the Earth rotates using a pendulum, suspended from the ceiling of a church.

image Physicist William Thomson proposes a concept of "absolute zero", at which the energy of molecules is zero. He draws on Charles' Law to show that such a condition would hold at -273 degrees Celsius.

In South Bend, Indiana, Clement and Henry Studebaker found Studebaker Brothers. Joined by a third brother, John, in 1858, the company will become the world's largest maker of wagons and carriages.

image In Sweden, safety matches are patented by J. E. Lundstrom.

image The brown paper bag is invented.

The elevator is invented, facilitating the future development of skyscrapers.

The U.S. state of Pennsylvania adopts a non-standard railroad gauge in order to prevent New York's Erie Railroad from establishing a route, through Pennsylvania, to Ohio.

1852

image image James Prescott Joule and William Thompson, later Lord Kelvin, establish that an expanding gas becomes cooler. This is now known as the Joule-Thompson effect.

1853

image Léon Foucault demonstrates that the velocity of light is lesson water than in air, tending to confirm the wave theory of light.

image William John Macquorn Rankine introduces the concept of potential energy, or energy of position.

image André-Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri credited with introduction of the carte de visite (English: visiting card or calling card) format for portraiture. Disdéri uses a camera with multiple lenses that can photograph eight different poses on one large negative. After printing on albumen paper, the images are cut apart and glued to calling-card-size mounts. Photographs had previously served as calling cards, but Disdéri's invention of the paper carte de visite (i.e. "visiting card") enabled the mass production of photographs. On 27 November 1854 he patented the system of printing ten photographs on a single sheet (although there is no evidence that a system printing more than eight actually materialized). Disdéri's's cartes de visite were 6×9 cm, about the size of conventional (nonphotographic) visiting cards of the time, and were made by a camera with four lenses and a sliding plate holder; a design inspired by the stereoscopic cameras. The novelty quickly spread throughout the world. According to a German visitor, Disdéri's studio became "really the Temple of Photography - a place unique in its luxury and elegance. Daily he sells three to four thousand francs worth of portraits". The fact that these photos could be reproduced inexpensively and in great quantity brought about the decline of the daguerreotype and ushered in a carte de visite craze as they became enormously popular throughout Europe and the United States. Disdéri also invented the twin-lens reflex camera.

1854

(no entry for this year)

image image A mercury pump is developed by inventor Heinrich Geissler, to produce vacuum tubes. The first cathode rays will be observed in these tubes, after they are modified and improved by Sir William Crookes.

image Engineer Frederick Taylor carries out "time-motion" studies of workers with the idea of making their labor more efficient. He will pioneer the "scientific management" of the workplace.

1855

(no entry for this year)

image A railway bridge spanning the Mississippi opens between Rockville, Illinois, and Davenport, Iowa. Abraham Lincoln, a lawyer, will defend the legality of the bridge before the Supreme Court, in response to a "right of way" suit brought by a steamship company.

image During Easter vacation from London's Royal College of Chemistry, 18-year-old William Henry Perkin synthesized mauve, or aniline purple — the first synthetic dyestuff — from chemicals derived from coal tar. Mauve was enthusiastically adopted by the fashion industry in England and synthetic dyes quickly destroyed the market for natural substances derived from plants like indigo and madder. Perkin's creation was an accident — he was trying to synthesize quinine.

image The "Bessemer process" for making inexpensive steel, which involves using blasts of cold air to decarbonize melted pig iron, is developed by inventor Henry Bessemer.

The 458-mile Wabash and Erie Canal opens after 24 years, and is the largest canal ever dug in the U.S. By 1860, however, sections will begin to be close, and, unable to compete for railroads, the entire Canal will be closed by 1874.

1856

(no entry for this year)

image In Burrville, Connecticut, commercial production of Gail Borden's patented "condensed milk" begins. The product is made from skim milk, without any fat and without a number of nutrients found in cow's milk.

In California, Tokay, Zinfandel, and Shiraz grapes (all from Hungary) are first planted, and Italian honeybees are introduced. This is the beginning of the U.S. wine and honey industries. In North America, honey bees are an artificially introduced and invasive species.

image Robert Wilhelm von Bunsen (along with Henry Roscoe) publish a design for a laboratory burner in Poggendorff's Annalen der Physik und Chemie, 100:84-85.

1857

image Über die Art der Bewegung, welche wir Wäe nennen (On the type of motion turned heat) by Rudolf Clausius is establishes his kinetic theory of heat of the mathematical basis. It also explains how evaporation occurs.

J. Schweppe & Co. Ltd. patents a quinine tonic water that they will begin selling in 1880.

image John Landis Mason patents a reusable glass jar.

1858

image Julius Plücker shows that cathode rays bend under the influence of a magnet, suggesting they are connected in some way with charge. This is an early step along the path that will lead in 1897 to the discovery that cathode rays are composed of electrons.

image In Titusville, Pennsylvania, commercial production of petroleum begins, with drilling of the first well by Edwin Laurentine Drake. The well will produce approximately 400 gallons/day.

image The first internal combustion engine is developed by Jean-Joseph-Etienne Lenoir. The engine uses coal gas.

1859

image Gustav Kirchoff recognizes that sodium is found on the sun and discovers his black-body radiation law.

image image Physicist Gustav Robert Kirchhoff and chemist R. W. Bunsen explain that when light passes through a gas, or heated material, only certain wavelengths of the light are absorbed. Therefore, an analysis of the spectrum of the light can reveal the chemical makeup of the gas or material.

Herman Hollerith was born 29th February 1860

image Emil Erlenmeyer invents the flask.

1860

(no entry for this year)

image Oliver Wendell Holmes invents stereoscope viewer

image James Clerk Maxwell presents a projected additive color image of a multicolored ribbon, the first demonstration of color photography by the three-color method he suggested in 1855. It uses three separate black-and-white photographs taken and projected through red, green and blue color filters. The projected image is temporary but the set of three "color separations" is the first durable color photograph.

1861

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1862

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1863

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1864

image James Clerk Maxwell's A dynamical theory of the electromagnetic field is the first of his publications to use Michael Faraday's concept of a field as the basis of the mathematical treatment of electricity and magnetism. It introduces Maxwell's equations to describe electromagnetism.

(no entry for this year)

1865

image Rudolf Clausius invents the term ENTROPY to describe the degradation of energy in the closed system.

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1866

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1867

(no entry for this year)

image Louis Ducos du Hauron patents his numerous ideas for color photography based on the three-color principle, including procedures for making subtractive color prints on paper. They are published the following year. Their implementation is not technologically practical at that time, but they anticipate most of the color processes that are later introduced.

Wallace Clement Ware Sabine becomes the first acoustical engineer and uses acoustic principles to design Boston's Symphony Hall.

1868

(no entry for this year)

(no entry for this year)

1869

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1870

(no entry for this year)

Richard Leach Maddox invents the gelatin dry plate silver bromide process. Negatives no longer had to be developed immediately. Long before his discovery of the dry gelatin photographic emulsion, Maddox was prominent in what was called photomicrography - photographing minute organisms under the microscope. The eminent photomicrographer of the day, Lionel S. Beale, included as a frontispiece images made by Maddox in his manual 'How to work with the Microscope'.

1871

image George Johnstone Stoney notes that the wavelengths of three lines in the hydrogen spectrum are found to have simple ratios, and anticipation of Balmer's formula, an important step towards understanding the structure of the atom.

image James Clerk Maxwell explains how his statistical theory of heat works by inventing MAXWELL'S DEMON, a mythical creature that can see and handle individual molecules. By opening a gate between two vessels containing a gas only one of fast molecules passing into one, the demon would make heat flow from cold to hot.

(no entry for this year)

1872

(no entry for this year)

QWERTY keyboard invented

image Hermann Wilhelm Vogel discovers dye sensitization, allowing the blue-sensitive but otherwise color-blind photographic emulsions then in use to be made sensitive to green, yellow and red light. Technical problems delay the first use of dye sensitization in a commercial product until the mid-1880s; fully panchromatic emulsions are not in common use until the mid-20th century.

1873

image James Clerk Maxwell's Electricity and Magnetism contains the basic laws of electromagnetism and predicts, in great detail, such phenomena as radio waves and pressure caused by light rays.

Thomas J. Watson Sr. is born

The first electric tram operates in New York City.

1874

image Irish physicist George J. Stoney estimates the charge of the then unknown electron to be about 10-20 coulomb, close to the modern value of 1.6021892 x 10-19. He also introduces the term ELECTRON.

image The Cavendish laboratory at Cambridge is completed. Although widely believed to have been named after the 18th-century physicist Henry Cavendish, it is, in fact, named after the entire Cavendish family, because the 19th century steel-making descendent of Henry, William Cavendish, financed the laboratory. The structure of DNA was worked out at the Cavendish many years later by Watson and Crick.

(no entry for this year)

1875

(no entry for this year)

image image Ferdinand Hurter and Vero Charles Driffield begin systematic evaluation of sensitivity characteristics of photographic emulsions — the science of sensitometry. They also invent a photographic exposure estimation device known as an actinograph. In 1920, William Bates Ferguson edits a memorial volume: The Photographic Researches of Ferdinand Hurter & Vero C. Driffield: Being a Reprint of Their Published Papers, Together With a History of Their Early Work & a Bibliography of Later Work on the Same Subject.

1876

image Eugen Goldstein shows that the radiation in a vacuum tube produced when an electric current is forced through the tube starts at the cathode. Goldstein introduces the term CATHODE RAY to describe the light emitted.

image Phonograph Invented by Edison On December 15th, Thomas Edison applied for a patent for his phonograph. Edison initially believed it would be used to record business sessions, or family voices. Edison became famous with this invention and was invited to the White House for a demonstration.

1877

(no entry for this year)

Willgodt T. Odhner granted a patent for a calculating machine

image Eadweard Muybridge uses a row of cameras with trip-wires to make a high-speed photographic analysis of a galloping horse. Each picture is taken in less than the two-thousandth part of a second, and they are taken in sufficiently rapid sequence (about 25 per second) that they constitute a brief real-time "movie" that can be viewed by using a device such as a zoetrope, a photographic "first".

Heat ripening of gelatin emulsions is discovered. This greatly increases sensitivity and makes possible very short "snapshot" exposures.

image The world's first oil tanker — the Zoroaster — is launched, in the Caspian Sea. The ship was designed by Ludvig Nobel, the brother of Alfred Nobel.

The first electric street lighting appears, in London.

1878

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1879

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1880

image Pierre Curie discovers the piezoelectric effect: certain substances produce an electric current when they are physically distorted, and conversely they are physically distorted when an electric current is applied to them. This effect has many applications, including, in the 21st century, the construction of high-end tweeters in stereo systems.

(no entry for this year)

1881

image Hermann Ludwig von Helmholtz shows that the electrical charges in atoms are divided into definite integral portions, suggesting the idea that there is a smallest unit of electricity.

The first hydro-electric plant opens, in Wisconsin.

1882

image John William Strutt, Lord Rayleigh, discovers that the ratio of the atomic mass of oxygen to that of hydrogen is not 16 exactly, as had been assumed, but 15.882.

Scheutz invents the first printing calculator

image German engineer Gottlieb Daimler creates a portable engine that leads to the age of the automobile.

1883

(no entry for this year)

image James Dewar invents a thermos bottle in which heat is prevented from leaking via vacuum between two glass walls. The model becomes known as the Dewar Flask.

image The world's first skyscraper, the Home Insurance Company Building, is erected in Chicago.

1885

Johann Jakob Balmer discovers the formula for the hydrogen spectrum that will later inspire Niels Bohr to develop his model of the atom.

(no entry for this year)

1886

image William Crookes proposes that atomic weights measured by chemists are averages of the weights of different kinds of atoms of the same element (although it will not be until 1910 that Frederick Soddy identifies these different kinds of atoms as isotopes).

Dorr E. Felt was granted a patent for the Comptometer.

Introduction of the Comptometer by Felt & Tarrant Co

Celluloid film base introduced.

1887

image image Albert Michelson and Edward Morley measure the velocity of light in two directions, attempting to detect the proper motion of Earth through the ether (a hypothesized fluid that was assumed to fill all space, providing a medium for the transport of electromagnetic waves). The Michelson Morley experiment reveals no evidence of motion.

image Ernst Mach notes that airflow becomes disturbed at the speed of sound.

Babbage's Analytical Engine Operates For The First Time

Burroughs Receives Patent for Calculating Machine

Introduction of its adder-lister by William Seward Burroughs

image Eastman patents Kodak roll-film camera.

Louis Le Prince makes Roundhay Garden Scene. It is believed to be the first-ever motion picture on film.

image John Boyd Dunlop, trained as a veterinary surgeon, devises the first practical pneumatic tire in response to a request from his son for a more comfortable tricycle. His first effort involved an inflated section of garden hose, fitted to the rear wheels of the tricycle. Although born in Scotland, Dunlop spent most of his life in Northern Ireland, where his image occurs on the current £10 note, issued by the Northern Bank.

1888

image Heinrich Rudolf Hertz produces and detects radio waves for the first time. Radio waves will be called Hertzian waves until renamed by Marconi, who calls them radiotelegraphy waves.

Herman Hollerith lodges patent for Punch Card technology

Nintendo is founded

The first commercially available transparent celluloid roll film is introduced by the Eastman Company, later renamed the Eastman Kodak Company and commonly known as Kodak.

1889

image George Francis Fitzgerald formulates the principle that objects shrink slightly in the direction they are traveling, now known as the Fitzgerald-Lorenz contraction, since Hendrik Antoon Lorentz reaches the same conclusion a few years later.

Herman Hollerith designs tabulating machines for 1890 U.S. Census

Hypertext Pioneer Vannevar Bush Is Born

US Census Bureau announces results using Herman Hollerith's machine

1890

(no entry for this year)

Gabriel Lippmann announces a "method of reproducing colors photographically based on the phenomenon of interference".

William Kennedy Laurie Dickson develops the "kinetoscopic" motion picture camera while working for Thomas Edison.

1891

(no entry for this year)

(no entry for this year)

1892

(no entry for this year)

(no entry for this year)

1893

image Wilhelm Wien discovers that the maximum wavelength emitted by hot body varies inversely with its absolute temperature. Wien's law becomes useful in establishing the temperature of stars. The problems he has with deriving an equation to describe black-body radiation lead to Max Planck's introduction of the quantum in 1900.

(no entry for this year)

1894

image Joseph John (J.J.) Thomson announces that he has found that the velocity of cathode rays is much lower than that of light.

Auguste and Louis Lumière invent the cinématographe.

image Cornflakes are invented in Battle Creek, Michigan, by John Harvey Kellogg — the chief medical officer of the Battle Creek sanitarium.

1895

image Charles Thomson Rees Wilson develops the CLOUD CHAMBER, a box containing a gas that is saturated. When a charged particle passes through the gas, small droplets are formed that make the track of the particle visible. The cloud chamber becomes a powerful tool in particle physics.

image Pierre Curie shows that as the temperature of the magnet is increased, there is a level at which the magnetism is disrupted and ceases to exist. This temperature is still called the Curie point.

image Wilhelm Konrad Röntgen (Roentgen) discovers X-rays, which will soon be applied in the visualization of bodily structures and in the induction of genetic mutations (both intentionally and accidentally).

(no entry for this year)

1896

image Antoine-Henri Becquerel discovers rays produced by uranium — the first observation of natural radioactivity.

America's first subway opens, in Boston.

Russian physicist Alexander Popov uses an antenna to transmit radio waves over a distance of 5 km.

1897

image Joseph John Thomson discovers the electron, the first known particle that is smaller than an atom, in part because he has better vacuum pumps that were previously available. He, and independently, Emil Wiechert, determine the ratio of mass to charge of the particles by deflecting them by electric and magnetic fields.

Marie Curie begins research of "uranium rays" that will lead to the discovery of radioactivity.

Kodak introduces the Folding Pocket Kodak.

1898

image image Marie and Pierre Curie discovered that thorium, gives off "uranium rays", which Marie renames RADIOACTIVITY.

(no entry for this year)

1899

image British physicist Ernest Rutherford discovers the radioactivity from uranium has at least two different forms, which he calls alpha and beta rays.

image image image Fritz Geisel, Antoine-Henri Becquerel, and Marie Curie proved the beta rays consist of high-speed electrons.

Kodak introduces their first Brownie, a very inexpensive user-reloadable point-and-shoot box camera.

1900

image Paul Karl Ludwig Drude shows that moving electrons conduct electricity in metals.

image Paul Ulrich Villard is the first to observe a radiation that is more penetrating than X-rays, now called gamma rays.

image On December 14, Max Planck announces the first step toward quantum theory. He states that substances can emit light only at certain energies, which implies that some physical processes are not continuous, but occur only in specified amounts called quanta.

Herman Hollerith patents Apperatus For Punching Record Cards

image Kodak introduces the 120 film format.

image The Metro subway opens in Paris.

1901

(no entry for this year)

Arthur Korn devises practical telephotography technology (reduction of photographic images to signals that can be transmitted by wire to other locations).Wire-Photos are in wide use in Europe by 1910, and transmitted to other continents by 1922.

1902

(no entry for this year)

The first motor taxis appear in London

1903

Physicist Ernest Rutherford lectures the British Association that radioactivity could power the sun and maintain its heat, meaning the sun and Earth could be much older than Lord Kelvin's estimate.

The Rolls-Royce company is founded in Britain.

1904

(no entry for this year)

The first motorized buses operate in London.

image The first neon signs appear.

1905

Albert Einstein proposes the special theory of relativity (E=mc2).

Computer Pioneer Grace Hopper is Born

1906

(no entry for this year)

The Autochrome plate is introduced. It becomes the first commercially successful color photography product.

1907

(no entry for this year)

Kinemacolor, a two-color process known as the first commercial "natural color" system for movies, is introduced.

General Motors Corporation is formed.

image The Ford Motor Company produces the first Model T. Ultimately, more than 15 million will be produced.

1908

(no entry for this year)

Kodak announces a 35 mm "safety" motion picture film on an acetate base as an alternative to the highly flammable nitrate base. The motion picture industry discontinues its use after 1911 due to technical imperfections.

The plastic age begins with the first commercial manufacture of Bakelite.

1909

(no entry for this year)

Three companies merge to become C-T-R

1910

(no entry for this year)

(no entry for this year)

1911

(no entry for this year)

Thomas Edison introduces a short-lived 22 mm home motion picture format using acetate "safety" film manufactured by Kodak.

Vest Pocket Kodak using 127 film.

1912

(no entry for this year)

image Roland Garros, a French aviator, becomes the first person to fly across the Mediterranean. Garros' original plan was to fly from St. Raphael in France to Bizerta, Tunisia, with the possibility of a fueling stop on Sardinia. En route, the trip seemed to be going well, so he skipped the refueling stop and flew directly to Bizerta, where he arrived at 1:45pm, with about five liters of fuel left in his tank.

image Oskar Barnack develops a prototype camera for testing 35mm movie film. This device, now often referred to as an UR-Leica, was quickly recognized as a miniature camera for producing still images. A dozen years later, the first commercially available 35mm still camera was marketed as the Leica I.

Kodak makes 35 mm panchromatic motion picture film available on a bulk special order basis.

image Hans Geiger unveils his radiation detector.

1913

(no entry for this year)

Thomas J. Watson Sr. joins C-T-R

Kodak introduces the Autographic film system.

The World, the Flesh and the Devil, made in Kinemacolor, is the first dramatic feature film in color released.

1914

(no entry for this year)

(no entry for this year)

1915

(no entry for this year)

(no entry for this year)

1916

(no entry for this year)

(no entry for this year)

1917

(no entry for this year)

Core memory inventor Jay Forrester is born

1918

(no entry for this year)

ENIAC Designer Presper Eckert Is Born

1919

(no entry for this year)

(no entry for this year)

1920

(no entry for this year)

(no entry for this year)

1921

(no entry for this year)

Kodak makes 35 mm panchromatic motion picture film available as a regular stock.

1922

(no entry for this year)

Integrated Circuit Co-Inventor Jack Kilby is Born

Harold Edgerton invents the xenon flash lamp for strobe photography.

The 16 mm amateur motion picture format is introduced by Kodak. Their Cine-Kodak camera uses reversal film and all 16 mm is on an acetate (safety) base.

1923

(no entry for this year)

C-T-R becomes IBM

1924

(no entry for this year)

First patent for a transistor in Canada lodged

January 1925 Douglas Engelbart is Born

Supercomputer Pioneer Seymour Cray is Born

image The Leica I 35mm still camera was introduced at the Leipzig Spring Fair in Germany, thereby launching the 35mm format for portable photography.

1925

(no entry for this year)

Kodak introduces its 35 mm Motion Picture Duplicating Film for duplicate negatives. Previously, motion picture studios used a second camera alongside the primary camera to create a duplicate negative.

1926

(no entry for this year)

(no entry for this year)

1927

(no entry for this year)

Introduction of 80-columns card format

1928

(no entry for this year)

Herman Hollerith Died

1929

(no entry for this year)

(no entry for this year)

1930

(no entry for this year)

(no entry for this year)

1931

(no entry for this year)

"Flowers and Trees", the first full-color cartoon, is made in Technicolor by Disney.

Kodak introduces the first 8 mm amateur motion picture film, cameras, and projectors.

1932

(no entry for this year)

(no entry for this year)

1933

(no entry for this year)

IBM 405 Alphabetical Accounting Machine introduced

The 135 film cartridge is introduced, making 35 mm easy to use for still photography.

1934

(no entry for this year)

Becky Sharp, the first feature film made in the full-color "three-strip" version of Technicolor, is released.

Introduction of Kodachrome multi-layered color reversal film (16 mm only; 8 mm and 35 mm follow in 1936, sheet film in 1938).

1935

(no entry for this year)

At Cambridge Alan Turing invented the principle of the modern computer

Konrad Zuse Files For Patent

Agfacolor Neu (English: New Agfacolor) color reversal film for home movies and slides.

Introduction by IHAGEE of the Ihagee Kine Exakta 1, the first 35 mm SLR (Single Lens Reflex) camera.

1936

(no entry for this year)

Alan Turing Defines the Universal Machine

ILLIAC IV Designer Slotnick is born

The Atanasoff–Berry Computer first conceived

1937

(no entry for this year)

Zuse Z1 built by Konrad Zuse

1938

(no entry for this year)

Hewlett Packard Founded

Agfacolor negative and positive 35 mm color film stock for professional motion picture use (not for making paper prints).

The View-Master 3-D viewer and its "reels" of seven small stereoscopic image pairs on Kodachrome film are introduced.

1939

(no entry for this year)

(no entry for this year)

1940

(no entry for this year)

Zuse Z3 machine completed

1941

(no entry for this year)

The Atanasoff-Berry Computer is completed

Kodacolor, the first color film that yields negatives for making chromogenic color prints on paper. Roll films for snapshot cameras only, 35 mm not available until 1958.

1942

(no entry for this year)

The Colossus Mark 1 computer is delivered to Bletchley Park

The First Computing Journal

Work begins on ENIAC

1943

(no entry for this year)

First Harvard Mark 1 shipped

1944

(no entry for this year)

Grace Hopper recorded the first actual computer "bug"

Patent is Filed for the Harvard Mark I

Vannevar Bush publishes his ideas for MEMEX, a proto-hypertext system and forerunner to the World Wide Web

1945

(no entry for this year)

Alan Turing Proposal For 'ACE' Automatic Computing Engine

ENIAC Unveiled

ENIAC, short for Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer was announced

Frederick Williams Receives Patent for RAM device

1946

(no entry for this year)

J Lyons executives report on the potential of computers to automate clerical work

The Williams tube won the race for a practical random-access memory

Dennis Gabor invents holography.

Harold Edgerton develops the Rapatronic camera for the U.S. government.

1947

(no entry for this year)

IBM´s Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator was built

The Manchester Baby, the world's first stored program computer, ran its first program

Edwin H. Land introduces the first Polaroid instant camera.

image The Hasselblad 1600F camera is introduced.

1948

(no entry for this year)

EDSAC performed its first calculations

EDSAC ran its first programs

EDVAC goes onlline

Jay Forrester Records "Core Memory" Idea

Professor Bill Phillips unveils Phillips Hydraulic Economic Modelling Computer at the LSE

The Contax S camera is introduced, the first 35 mm SLR camera with a pentaprism eye-level viewfinder.

1949

(no entry for this year)

The first Elliott 152 computer appeared

Zuse sold first Z4 computer

1950

(no entry for this year)

Ferranti Mark 1 delivered to Manchester University

LEO I computer became operational

The first UNIVAC was delivered

UNIVAC-1 goes online

1951

(no entry for this year)

CBS News Uses UNIVAC Computer to Predict Election

Grace Hopper completes the A-0 Compiler

Heinz Nixdorf founded Nixdorf Computer

Bwana Devil, a low-budget polarized 3-D film, premieres in late November and starts a brief 3-D craze that begins in earnest in 1953 and fades away during 1954.

1952

(no entry for this year)

IBM announces the Model 650 computer

Jay Forrester installed magnetic core memory at MIT

1953

(no entry for this year)

20th September First FORTRAN Program Runs

IBM Announces Model 705 Computer

Jack Tramiel starts Commodore

Leica M Introduced

1954

(no entry for this year)

Apple Co-Founder Steve Jobs is Born

Bill Gates, cofounder of Microsoft Corporation, was born

English Electric Deuce Computers introduced

ENIAC is retired

1955

(no entry for this year)

First keyboard used to input data

IBM brings out the Magnetic Disk Memory

IBM introduces the IBM 350

Jay Forrester Receives Patent on "Core" Memory

Pegasus, produced by Ferranti Ltd., went into service in March 1956

Wang Sells Core Memory Patent to IBM

1956

(no entry for this year)

BCS - British Computer Society is Founded

CDC Introduces 1604 Computer

DEC is founded

Ferranti Mercury Introduced

FORTRAN-1 is formally published

May 1957 LEO II Installed

First Asahi Pentax SLR introduced.

First digital computer acquisition of scanned photographs, by Russell Kirsch et al. at the U.S. National Bureau of Standards (now the NIST).

1957

(no entry for this year)

Jack Kilby created the first integrated circuit

1958

(no entry for this year)

COBOL is introduced

The Xerox 914 is the first office copier for sale

AGFA introduces the first fully automatic camera, the Optima.

Nikon F introduced.

1959

(no entry for this year)

DEC released its first mini computer: PDP-1

1960

(no entry for this year)

Clive Sinclair founds Sinclair Radionics

Computerized spreadsheets for use in business accounting developed

LEO III completed in 1961

Minivac 601 Computer Launched

Robert Noyce Awarded Patent for "Integrated Circuit"

1961

(no entry for this year)

"Music from Mathematics" LP was created using an IBM 7090 computer

The first commercial Modem manufactured

The Machester Atlas was inaugurated on 7th December 1962

1962

(no entry for this year)

Douglas Engelbart Invents the Mouse

First edition of the ASCII standard was published.

Theodore H (Ted) Nelson coins the word Hypertext

Kodak introduces the Instamatic.

1963

(no entry for this year)

BASIC language developed

First operation of BASIC

First operation of Ferranti Atlas

Graphic tablet developed

IBM releases the System 360 range of commercial computers

Introduction of CDC 6600

Introduction of DEC PDP-7 18-bits minicomputer

First Pentax Spotmatic SLR introduced.

1964

(no entry for this year)

Commodore Business Machines (CBM) is founded.

DEC unveils the PDP-8,

Introduction of Wang 300 electronic calculator

Moore's Law coined

1965

(no entry for this year)

Introduction of DEC PDP-9

The hand-held pocket calculator was invented at Texas Instruments in 1966

1966

(no entry for this year)

Barclays Bank in the UK claims to have installed the first cash dispenser

Elliott Automation merged with English Electric

Introduction of DEC PDP-10

First MOS 10 by 10 active pixel array shown by Noble

1967

(no entry for this year)

CDC Introduces the 7600 Supercomputer

Douglas C. Engelbart publicly demonstrates the mouse

IBM tests a 8in floppy disc

Integrated Circuits First Used in Apollo Moon shot

Introduction of HP-9100 desk calculator

Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore found Intel Corporation

T J Watson and IBM granted patent for the DRAM

1968

(no entry for this year)

AMD Advanced Micro Devices is founded

ARPANET launch the world's first successful packet-switched wide area computer network

DEC PDP-15 Introduced

First flight to Moon of Apollo XI with Raytheon Apollo Guidance Computer

Honeywell releases the H316 "Kitchen Computer",

Intel announces a 1 kilobit RAM chip

Plessey buys out Ferranti's numerical Control Interests

1969

(no entry for this year)

5200 computers installed in Britain

Computer terminals in homes predicted for 1980

DEC introduces the PDP-8/E

IBM 370/145 introduced

Open University to install ICL 32K 1902A computer

Univac 1110 is introduced

UNIX is developed

Xerox opens the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC)

1970

(no entry for this year)

Burroughs introduces L500 Visible Record Model

DEC launches Giant Mini PDP-11/45

DEC launches PDP-11/03

Decsystem 10 introduced

First Network Email sent by Ray Tomlinson

IBM's Thomas J Watson retires

Intel Introduces the World's First EPROM

Intel Launches the First Microprocessor - The 4004

Nixdorf merge with AEG-Telefunken

Olivetti launches P602 "minicomputer"

1971

(no entry for this year)

£1.3m RAF order for Cossor Terminals

370/125 and OCR reader from IBM

ARPA Network - UK gets link to major US network

ASC developed by Texas Instruments

Atanasoff Official "Inventor" of Computer

Atari Introduces Pong

Burroughs Launch L8000 Range of Computers

Burroughs launches L7000 range on UK market

C programming language developed

Clive Sinclair introduces the first pocket calculator

Development of standard OS to be halted

First e-mail program developed

First Infra-red Data Link transmission in the UK

Flat screen terminal introduced by Burroughs

Foundation of Cray Research Inc by Seymour Cray

Fujitsu and Hitachi in joint deal

GE Time Sharing Service

Hewlett-Packard introduces the HP-35

Honeywell's 700 range comes to the UK

IBM's DOS/VS

NCR 399

Problems with IBM 370/155 and 370/165

Sigma 6

SITA Network

Space Craft Pioneer 10 & 11 use Custom CPU in TTL

Terminal range boosted by Burroughs TC 3500

The Future of ICL as a British-controlled going concern

The Intel 8008 was introduced

The Magnavox Odyssey, the first video game console, is released

UK launch for Burroughs L8000 range

Worlds first IBM 370/135 installed in Britain

Integrated Photomatrix (Noble) demonstrates for 64 by 64 MOS active pixel array

1972

(no entry for this year)

8" floppy & first "Hard Drive introduced by IBM

Bob Metcalfe invents Ethernet

Britain exports more computing equipment than it imports

Gary Kildall writes CP/M

IBM 370/145 product range released

IBM in Nigeria

IMSAI is founded. In 1973

The Micral was the earliest commercial, non-kit personal computer

Xerox Alto personal computer was developed at Xerox PARC

Fairchild Semiconductor releases the first large image forming CCD chip: 100 rows and 100 columns of pixels.

1973

(no entry for this year)

GA LSI 12/16 and LSI16

introduction of Intel 8080 2MHz microprocessor

MITS completes the first prototype Altair 8800 microcomputer

NCR 250-6000

Philips P852M

The Z-80, 8 bit processor is designed by Zilog Corp

Xerox Palo Alto Research Center designed the Alto

1974

(no entry for this year)

Bill Gates and Paul Allen sign a licensing agreement with MITS

CP/M operating system finished

Cray 1A announced

First meeting of the Homebrew Club

Microsoft Founded

MITS Altair launched on the cover of Popular Electronics magazine

Bryce Bayer of Kodak develops the Bayer filter mosaic pattern for CCD color image sensors.

1975

(no entry for this year)

Apple 1 Released

Burroughs introduce the large B7700 series

Dec System 20 introduced

Intel introduce SBC-80/10 "computer on a card"

Last slide rule manufactured today

Seymour Cray demonstrates CRAY-1 - The first vector-processor supercomputer

Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs and Ronald Wayne Found Apple Computer Inc.

The 5 1/4" flexible disk drive was introduced

Steadicam becomes available.

1976

(no entry for this year)

Commodore International shows its Commodore PET 2001

Radio Shack announces TRS-80 computer

Science of Cambridge Ltd Formed

The Apple II launched

The MK14 was introduced by Science of Cambridge

The RCA CDP1802 microprocessor was used in the Galileo spacecraft

1977

(no entry for this year)

Acorn Computers Ltd formed in Cambridge, UK

Texas Instruments introduced Speak & Spell

VisiCalc Spreadsheet is born

1978

(no entry for this year)

"VisiCalc" introduced

Acorn System 1 Launched

Apple II+ Launched

Microsoft moves from Albuquerque, New Mexico to Bellevue, Washington

1979

(no entry for this year)

Acorn Atom Launched

Apple Computer’s Initial Share Offering

Microsoft Signs Contract with IBM to Create Operating System

Sinclair ZX80 Launched

The Apple III was announced

1980

(no entry for this year)

Acorn BBC Micro Launched

HP-41 calculator Used In Space Shuttle

IBM announced that it was launching a personal computer using an Intel 8088

IBM introduces personal computer with Microsoft's 16-bit operating system, MS-DOS 1.0

Introduction of Osborne portable computer in a suitcase

Microsoft incorporates

Sinclair ZX81 Computer Launched

Space Shuttle uses Intel 8086 and RCA 1802

The first ‘portable’ computer is launched

VIC-20 Released in Europe & US

1981

(no entry for this year)

Commodore 64 Released

Dragon 32 Released

Introduction of Cray X-MP supercomputer

Introduction of Intel 80286 at 6 MHz, with 134,000 transistors

Sinclair launches the ZX Spectrum computer

Sinclair ZX Spectrum Launched

1982

(no entry for this year)

Apple Lisa Launched

Introduction of spreadsheet program 1-2-3 by Lotus,

Microsoft Introduced 2-button Mouse

Microsoft Introduces Windows

The famicom is released in Japan

1983

(no entry for this year)

Apple launches Macintosh 128K

Creation of Dell Computer Corporation by Michael Dell

First ARM Processors Powered Up

IBM and Compaq introduce the IDE interface

IBM’s new 3480 cartridge tape system introduced

Introduction of IBM PC/AT based on Intel 80286

Macintosh 512K Launched

Novelist William Gibson coins the term cyberspace

1984

(no entry for this year)

Commodore 128 Released

Cray X-MP Supercomputer Begins Operation

First Commodore Amiga Released

Introduction of Intel 386

Microsoft Windows Launched

Olivetti buy 49% of Acorn Computers

Steve Jobs founds NeXT Computers Inc.

1985

(no entry for this year)

Acorn BBC Master Compact Launched

Acorn BBC Master Launched

Apple Macintosh Plus launched

First PC virus is released with "Brain"

Microsoft moves to corporate campus in Redmond, Washington

Microsoft stock goes public

Nintendo NES released

Kodak scientists invent the world's first megapixel sensor.

1986

(no entry for this year)

Commodore release the Amiga 500 and the Amiga 2000

Macintosh II released

Windows 2 was launched

1987

(no entry for this year)

IBM announces 3 millionth PS/2 personal computer

RISC OS is released

The first worm experience appears

The NeXT (68030 CPU) computer is introduced after two years of research

Unisys takes over Convergent Technologies

1988

(no entry for this year)

Apple introduces the Macintosh SE/30

Apple Macintosh Portable Released

ICL introduces DRS model 40 and 45

Tim Berners-Lee toyed with the idea of web pages and hyperlinks

1989

(no entry for this year)

Commodore releases the Amiga 3000

Hubble Space Telescope uses 386 processor

Introduction of IBM RS/6000

Microsoft launches Windows 3.0

1990

(no entry for this year)

Apple releases the PowerBook 100

First E-mail From Space Is Sent from a Mac Portable

Linus Torvalds from Finland releases Linux version 0.02

Silicon & Synapse founded

Sun Microsystems Starts Java Technology

1991

(no entry for this year)

Commodore releases the the Amiga 500+

Internet freed from Government control

Microsoft Releases Windows 3.1

Photo CD created by Kodak.

1992

(no entry for this year)

Apple Newton Message Pad announced

Commodore released the CD32 model

Compaq Introduces Presario

Foundation of Nvidia

IBM Announces a loss of $4.97m for 1992

Intel Ships "Pentium" Chip"

Introduction of Apple Newton PDA

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory begins work on image-capturing devices using CMOS or active pixel sensors.

1993

(no entry for this year)

Netscape Communications Corporation is founded

Silicon & Synapse changes its name to Blizzard Entertainment

Yahoo founded January 1994

Nikon introduces the first optical-stabilized lens.

1994

(no entry for this year)

Microsoft launches Windows 95

Nvidia's NV1 launched

"Kodak DC40 and the Apple QuickTake 100 become the first digital cameras marketed for consumers."

1995

(no entry for this year)

Apple Computer buys NeXT

eBay is founded by Jeff Skoll and Pierre Omidyar

Eastman Kodak, FujiFilm, AgfaPhoto, and Konica introduce the Advanced Photo System (APS).

1996

(no entry for this year)

IBM's Deep Blue Beats Gary Kasparov at Chess

IBM announces RS/6000 SP Deep Blue

zon.com, an online bookseller, goes public

first known publicly shared picture via a cell phone, by Philippe Kahn.

1997

(no entry for this year)

Apple Release the iMac

Foundation of Google by Larry Page and Sergey Brin

Introduction of Apple iMac

Microsoft launches Windows 98

1998

(no entry for this year)

Napster the first file sharing program introduced

Nvidia releases GeForce 256

The Millennium bug is taken seriously

1999

(no entry for this year)

Intel ES7000 server from Unisys introduced

Microsoft launches Windows 2000

J-SH04 introduced by J-Phone, the first commercially available mobile phone with a camera that can take and share still pictures.[13]

2000

(no entry for this year)

Apple Launches a New Music Device - The iPod

Microsoft Releases Windows XP

2001

(no entry for this year)

Microsoft and partners launch Tablet PC

2002

(no entry for this year)

Microsoft launches Windows Server 2003

2003

(no entry for this year)

Firefox 1.0 Introduced

First Ubuntu Linux operating system Released

Microsoft returns $75 billion to shareholders

2004

(no entry for this year)

Google now indexes over 8 billion pages

AgfaPhoto files for bankruptcy. The production of Agfa brand consumer films ends.

2005

(no entry for this year)

Microsoft announces Bill Gates transition

Dalsa produces a 111 megapixel CCD sensor, the highest resolution at that time.

2006

(no entry for this year)

iPhone introduced

Microsoft launches Windows Vista and Office 2007

2007

(no entry for this year)

Android operating system released

The HD player war comes to an end

Virus Found On Computer In Space Station

Polaroid announces it is discontinuing the production of all instant film products, citing the rise of digital imaging technology.

2008

(no entry for this year)

FujiFilm launches world's first digital 3D camera with 3D printing capabilities.

Kodak announces the discontinuance of Kodachrome film.

2009

(no entry for this year)

Apple iPad Launched in the UK

Apple Surpasses Microsoft as Most Valuable Technology Company

First Tweet sent to Twitter on VIC-20

2010

(no entry for this year)

Steve Jobs retires as CEO of Apple

Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple, dies age 56

Lytro releases the first pocket-sized consumer light-field camera, capable of refocusing images after being taken.

2011

(no entry for this year)

Google Brain watches Youtube, recognises cats.

Wii U released

Wikipedia and others Go Dark in protest anti-piracy law

2012

(no entry for this year)

Edward Snowden Leaks Top Secret Documents

PlayStation 4 released

Suicide of Aaron Swartz

Xbox One released

2013

(no entry for this year)

Amazon buys Twitch for £585m

Android watches go up for preorder

Bill Gates returns to Microsoft as Technology Adviser

Bletchley park officially opens to the public

Facebook buys Oculus

Facebook buys WhatsApp

Nvidia at GPU Technology Conference

The Queen opens a new 'Information Age' Gallery at the Science Museum

2014

(no entry for this year)

Apple posts biggest quarterly profit in history

Apple reveals Apple Watch

Microsoft reveals HoloLens headset

2015

(no entry for this year)

(no entry for this year)

2016

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ESP Quick Facts

ESP Origins

In the early 1990's, Robert Robbins was a faculty member at Johns Hopkins, where he directed the informatics core of GDB — the human gene-mapping database of the international human genome project. To share papers with colleagues around the world, he set up a small paper-sharing section on his personal web page. This small project evolved into The Electronic Scholarly Publishing Project.

ESP Support

In 1995, Robbins became the VP/IT of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, WA. Soon after arriving in Seattle, Robbins secured funding, through the ELSI component of the US Human Genome Project, to create the original ESP.ORG web site, with the formal goal of providing free, world-wide access to the literature of classical genetics.

ESP Rationale

Although the methods of molecular biology can seem almost magical to the uninitiated, the original techniques of classical genetics are readily appreciated by one and all: cross individuals that differ in some inherited trait, collect all of the progeny, score their attributes, and propose mechanisms to explain the patterns of inheritance observed.

ESP Goal

In reading the early works of classical genetics, one is drawn, almost inexorably, into ever more complex models, until molecular explanations begin to seem both necessary and natural. At that point, the tools for understanding genome research are at hand. Assisting readers reach this point was the original goal of The Electronic Scholarly Publishing Project.

ESP Usage

Usage of the site grew rapidly and has remained high. Faculty began to use the site for their assigned readings. Other on-line publishers, ranging from The New York Times to Nature referenced ESP materials in their own publications. Nobel laureates (e.g., Joshua Lederberg) regularly used the site and even wrote to suggest changes and improvements.

ESP Content

When the site began, no journals were making their early content available in digital format. As a result, ESP was obliged to digitize classic literature before it could be made available. For many important papers — such as Mendel's original paper or the first genetic map — ESP had to produce entirely new typeset versions of the works, if they were to be available in a high-quality format.

ESP Help

Early support from the DOE component of the Human Genome Project was critically important for getting the ESP project on a firm foundation. Since that funding ended (nearly 20 years ago), the project has been operated as a purely volunteer effort. Anyone wishing to assist in these efforts should send an email to Robbins.

ESP Plans

With the development of methods for adding typeset side notes to PDF files, the ESP project now plans to add annotated versions of some classical papers to its holdings. We also plan to add new reference and pedagogical material. We have already started providing regularly updated, comprehensive bibliographies to the ESP.ORG site.

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Timeline

The new, dynamic Timeline from the Electronic Scholarly Publishing Project gives users more control over the timeline display.

We seek your suggestions for timeline content, both for individual events and for entire subjects.

To submit a correction or a recommendation or to propose new Timeline content (or to volunteer as a Timeline Editor), click HERE.

The Electronic Scholarly Publishing Project needs help: with acquiring content, with writing, with editing, with graphic production, and with financial support.

CLICK HERE to see what ESP needs most.

ESP Picks from Around the Web (updated 06 MAR 2017 )