year,history
1600,Galileo Galilei designs a basic thermometer.
1600,William Gilbert publishes his great book  describing how Earth behaves like a giant magnet. It's the beginning of the scientific study of magnetism.
1609,Galileo Galilei builds a practical telescope and makes new astronomical discoveries.
1643,Galileo's pupil Evangelista Torricelli builds the first mercury barometer for measuring air pressure.
1650,Christiaan Huygens develops the pendulum clock (using Galileo's earlier discovery that a swinging pendulum can be used to keep time).
1687,Isaac Newton formulates his three laws of motion.
1700,Bartolomeo Cristofori invents the piano.
1701,English farmer Jethro Tull begins the mechanization of agriculture by inventing the horse-drawn seed drill.
1703,Gottfried Leibniz pioneers the binary number system now used in virtually all computers.
1712,Thomas Newcomen builds the first practical (but stationary) steam engine
1700,Christiaan Huygens conceives the internal combustion engine
1737,William Champion develops a commercially viable process for extracting zinc on a large scale.
1757,John Campbell invents the sextant
1751,Axel Cronstedt isolates nickel.
1756,Axel Cronstedt notices steam when he boils a rock—and discovers zeolites.
1769,Wolfgang von Kempelen develops a mechanical speaking machine: the world's first speech synthesizer.
1770,Abraham Darby III builds a pioneering iron bridge at a place now called Ironbridge in England.
1780,Josiah Wedgwood (or Thomas Massey) invents the pyrometer.
1783,French Brothers Joseph-Michel Montgolfier and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier make the first practical hot-air balloon.
1800,Italian Alessandro Volta makes the first battery (known as a Voltaic pile).
1801,Joseph-Marie Jacquard invents the automated cloth-weaving loom. The punched cards it uses to store patterns help to inspire programmable computers.
1803,Henry and Sealy Fourdrinier develop the papermaking machine.
1806,Humphry Davy develops electrolysis into an important chemical technique and uses it to identify a number of new elements.
1807,Humphry Davy develops the electric arc lamp.
1814,George Stephenson builds the first practical steam locomotive.
1816,Robert Stirling invents the efficient Stirling engine.
1827,Joseph Niepce makes the first modern photograph.
1830,William Sturgeon develops the first practical electric motor.
1830,Louis Daguerre invents a practical method of taking pin-sharp photographs called Daguerreotypes.
1830,William Henry Fox Talbot develops a way of making and printing photographs using reverse images called negatives.
1836,Englishman Francis Petit-Smith and Swedish-American John Ericsson independently develop propellers with blades for ships.
1839,Charles Goodyear finally perfects a durable form of rubber (vulcanized rubber) after many years of unsuccessful experimenting.
1840,"Scottish physicist James Prescott Joule outlines the theory of the <a href=""conservation-of-energy.html"">conservation of energy</a>."
1840,Scotsman Alexander Bain invents a primitive fax machine based on chemical technology.
1849,James Francis invents a water turbine now used in many of the world's hydropower plants.
1850,Henry Bessemer pioneers a new method of making steel in large quantities.
1850,Louis Pasteur develops pasteurization: a way of preserving food by heating it to kill off bacteria.
1850,Italian Giovanni Caselli develops a mechanical fax machine called the pantelegraph.
1860,Frenchman Étienne Lenoir and German Nikolaus Otto pioneer the internal combustion engine.
1860,James Clerk Maxwell figures out that radio waves must exist and sets out basic laws of electromagnetism.
1860,Fire extinguishers are invented.
1861,Elisha Graves Otis invents the elevator with built-in safety brake.
1867,Joseph Monier invents reinforced concrete.
1868,Christopher Latham Sholes invents the modern typewriter and QWERTY keyboard.
1876,Alexander Graham Bell patents the telephone
1870,Thomas Edison develops the phonograph
1870,Lester Pelton invents a useful new kind of water turbine known as a Pelton wheel.
1877,Thomas Edison invents his sound-recording machine or phonograph—a forerunner of the record player and CD player.
1877,Edward Very invents the flare gun (Very pistol) for sending distress flares at sea.
1880,Thomas Edison patents the modern incandescent electric lamp.
1880,Pierre and Paul-Jacques Curie discover the piezoelectric effect.
1880,Thomas Edison opens the world's first power plants.
1880,Charles Chamberland invents the autoclave (steam sterilizing machine).
1880,Charles and Julia Hall and Paul Heroult independently develop an affordable way of making aluminum.
1880,Carrie Everson invents new ways of mining silver
1881,Jacques d'Arsonval suggests heat energy could be extracted from the oceans.
1883,George Eastman invents plastic photographic film.
1884,Charles Parsons develops the steam turbine.
1885,Karl Benz builds a gasoline-engined car.
1886,Josephine Cochran invents the dishwasher.
1888,Friedrich Reinitzer discovers liquid crystals.
1888,John Boyd Dunlop patents air-filled (pneumatic) tires.
1888,Nikola Tesla patents the alternating current (AC) electric induction motor and
1899,Everett F. Morse invents the optical pyrometer for measuring temperatures at a safe distance.
1890,French brothers Joseph and Louis Lumiere invent movie projectors and open the first movie theater.
1890,German engineer Rudolf Diesel develops his diesel engine—a more efficient internal combustion engine without a sparking plug.
1894,Physicist Sir Oliver Lodge sends the first ever message by radio wave in Oxford
1895,German physicist Wilhelm  discovers X rays.
1895,American Ogden Bolton
1901,Guglielmo Marconi sends radio-wave signals across the Atlantic Ocean from England to Canada
1901,The first electric vacuum cleaner is developed.
1903,Brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright build the first engine-powered airplane.
1905,Albert Einstein explains the photoelectric effect.
1905,Samuel J. Bens invents the chainsaw.
1906,Willis Carrier pioneers the air conditioner.
1906,Mikhail Tswett discovers chromatography.
1907,Leo Baekeland develops Bakelite
1907,Alva Fisher invents the electric clothes washer.
1906,Frederick Gardner Cottrell develops the electrostatic smoke precipitator (smokestack pollution scrubber).
1908,American industrialist and engineer Henry Ford launches the Ford Model T
1909,German chemists Fritz Haber and Zygmunt Klemensiewicz develop the glass electrode
1912,American chemist Gilbert Lewis describes the basic chemistry that leads to practical
1912,Hans Geiger develops the Geiger counter
1919,Francis Aston pioneers the mass spectrometer and uses it to discover many isotopes.
1920,John Logie Baird develops mechanical television.
1920,Philo T. Farnsworth invents modern electronic television.
1920,Robert H. Goddard develops the principle of the modern
1920,Albert W. Hull invents the magnetron
1921,"Karel Capek and his brother coin the word ""robot"" in a play about artificial humans."
1921,"John Larson develops the polygraph (""lie detector"") machine."
1928,The electric refrigerator is invented.
1930,Peter Goldmark pioneers color television.
1930,Laszlo and Georg Biro pioneer the modern ballpoint pen.
1930,Maria Telkes creates the first solar-powered house.
1930,Wallace Carothers develops neoprene (synthetic rubber used in wetsuits) and nylon
1930,Robert Watson Watt oversees the development of radar.
1930,Arnold Beckman develops the electronic pH meter.
1931,Harold E. Edgerton invents the xenon flash lamp for high-speed photography.
1932,Arne Olander discovers the shape memory effect in a gold-cadmium alloy.
1934,Jacob Moreno is credited with developing the first sociogram  in the 1930s to study interpersonal relationships.
1936,W.B. Elwood invents the magnetic reed switch.
1938,Chester Carlson invents the principle of photocopying (xerography).
1938,Roy Plunkett accidentally invents a nonstick plastic coating called Teflon.
1939,Igor Sikorsky builds the first truly practical helicopter.
1940,English physicists John Randall and Harry Boot develop a compact magnetron for use in airplane radar navigation systems.
1942,Enrico Fermi builds the first nuclear chain reactor at the University of Chicago.
1945,US government scientist Vannevar Bush proposes a kind of desk-sized memory store called Memex
1949,Bernard Silver and N. Joseph Woodland patent barcodes—striped patterns that are initially developed for marking products in grocery stores.
1950,"Charles Townes and Arthur Schawlow invent the maser (microwave laser). Gordon Gould coins the word ""laser"" and builds the first optical laser in 1958."
1950,Stanford Ovshinksy develops various technologies that make renewable energy more practical
1950,European bus companies experiment with using flywheels as regenerative brakes
1950,Percy Spencer accidentally discovers how to cook with microwaves
1954,Indian physicist Narinder Kapany pioneers fiber optics.
1956,First commercial nuclear power is produced at Calder Hall
1957,Soviet Union (Russia and her allies) launch the Sputnik space satellite.
1957,Lawrence Curtiss
1958,Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce
1959,IBM and General Motors develop Design Augmented by Computers-1 (DAC-1)
1960,Joseph-Armand Bombardier perfects his Ski-Doo® snowmobile.
1960,Theodore Maiman invents the ruby laser.
1962,William Armistead and S. Donald Stookey of Corning Glass Works invent light-sensitive (photochromic) glass.
1963,Ivan Sutherland develops Sketchpad
1964,IBM helps to pioneer e-commerce with an airline ticket reservation system called SABRE.
1965,Frank Pantridge develops the portable defibrillator for treating cardiac arrest patients.
1966,Stephanie Kwolek patents a super-strong plastic called Kevlar.
1967,Japanese company Noritake invents the vacuum fluorescent display (VFD).
1968,Alfred Y. Cho and John R. Arthur
1969,World's first solar power station opened in France.
1969,Long before computers become portable
1969,Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith invent the CCD (charge-coupled device): the light-sensitive chip used in digital cameras
1969,Astronauts walk on the Moon.
1960,Douglas Engelbart develops the computer mouse.
1960,James Russell invents compact discs.
1971,Electronic ink is pioneered by Nick Sheridon at Xerox PARC.
1971,Ted Hoff builds the first single-chip computer or microprocessor.
1973,Martin Cooper develops the first handheld cellphone (mobile phone).
1973,Robert Metcalfe figures out a simple way of linking computers together that he names Ethernet. Most computers hooked up to the Internet now use it.
1974,First grocery-store purchase of an item coded with a barcode.
1975,Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman invent public-key cryptography.
1975,Pico Electronics develops X-10 home automation system.
1976,Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs launch the Apple I: one of the world's first personal home computers
1980,Japanese electrical pioneer Akio Morita develops the Sony Walkman
1981,Stung by Apple's success
1981,The Space Shuttle makes its maiden voyage.
1981,Patricia Bath develops laser eye surgery for removing cataracts.
1981,Alexei Ekimov and Louis E. Brus (independently) discover quantum dots.
1983,Compact discs (CDs) are launched as a new way to store music by the Sony and Philips corporations.
1989,Tim Berners-Lee invents the World Wide Web.
1990,German watchmaking company Junghans introduces the MEGA 1
1991,Linus Torvalds creates the first version of Linux
1994,American-born mathematician John Daugman perfects the mathematics that make iris scanning systems possible.
1994,Israeli computer scientists Alon Cohen and Lior Haramaty invent VoIP for sending telephone calls over the Internet.
1995,Broadcast.com becomes one of the world's first online radio stations.
1995,Pierre Omidyar launches the eBay auction website.
1996,WRAL-HD broadcasts the first high-definition television (HDTV) signal in the United States.
1997,Electronics companies agree to make Wi-Fi a worldwide standard for wireless Internet.
2001,Apple revolutionizes music listening by unveiling its iPod MP3 music player.
2001,Richard Palmer develops energy-absorbing D3O plastic.
2001,The Wikipedia online encyclopedia is founded by Larry Sanger and Jimmy Wales.
2001,Bram Cohen develops BitTorrent file-sharing.
2002,iRobot Corporation releases the first version of its Roomba® vacuum cleaning robot.
2004,Electronic voting plays a major part in a controversial US Presidential Election.
2004,Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov discover graphene.
2005,A pioneering low-cost laptop for developing countries called OLPC is announced by MIT computing pioneer Nicholas Negroponte.
2007,Amazon.com launches its Kindle electronic book (e-book) reader.
2007,Apple introduces a touchscreen cellphone called the iPhone.
2010,Apple releases its touchscreen tablet computer
2010,3D TV starts to become more widely available.
2013,"Elon Musk announces ""hyperloop""—a giant"
2015,Supercomputers (the world's fastest computers) are now a mere 30 times less powerful than human brains.
2016,Three nanotechnologists win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for building miniature machines out of molecules.
2017,Quantum computing shows signs of becoming a practical technology.